VERSiTY   OF   CALIFORNIA         LIBRARY   OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


/ERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


LIBRARY    OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA 

f^ 


Qj^AlO 
RY   OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 

:>..  d^\_/T£> 


LIBRARY   OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF 


THE    UNIVERSITY   Of   CALIFORNIA          LIBRARY    OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF 


9  ± 


EMBARRASSMENTS 


EMBARRASSMENTS 


BY 


HENRY    JAMES 


AUTHOR  OF  "DAISY    MILLER,"  "THE   EUROPEANS' 
ETC.,  ETC. 


I; 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1897 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1896, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  June,  1896.     Reprinted  December, 
1896. 


J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET 3 

GLASSES 35 

THE  NEXT  TIME 183 

THE  WAY  IT  CAME    ....  265 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET 


I  HAD  done  a  few  things  and  earned  a  few 
pence  —  I  had  perhaps  even  had  time  to  begin  to 
think  I  was  finer  than  was  perceived  by  the  pat 
ronising  ;  but  when  I  take  the  little  measure  of 
my  course  (a  fidgety  habit,  for  it's  none  of  the 
longest  yet)  I  count  my  real  start  from  the  even 
ing  George  Corvick,  breathless  and  worried,  came 
in  to  ask  me  a  service.  He  had  done  more  things 
than  I,  and  earned  more  pence,  though  there  were 
chances  for  cleverness  I  thought  he  sometimes 
missed.  I  could  only  however  that  evening  de 
clare  to  him  that  he  never  missed  one  for  kind 
ness.  There  was  almost  rapture  in  hearing  it 
proposed  to  me  to  prepare  for  The  Middle,  the 
organ  of  our  lucubrations,  so  called  from  the  posi 
tion  in  the  week  of  its  day  of  appearance,  an 
article  for  which  he  had  made  himself  responsi 
ble  and  of  which,  tied  up  with  a  stout  string,  he 
laid  on  my  table  the  subject.  I  pounced  upon 

3 


4  EMBAKK4SSMENTS 

my  opportunity  —  that  is  on  the  first  volume  of 
it  —  and  paid  scant  attention  to  my  friend's  ex 
planation  of  his  appeal.  What  explanation  could 
be  more  to  the  point  than  my  obvious  fitness  for 
the  task  ?  I  had  written  on  Hugh  Vereker,  but 
never  a  word  in  The  Middle,  where  my  dealings 
were  mainly  with  the  ladies  and  the  minor  poets. 
This  was  his  new  novel,  an  advance  copy,  and 
whatever  much  or  little  it  should  do  for  his  repu 
tation  I  was  clear  on  the  spot  as  to  what  it  should 
do  for  mine.  Moreover,  if  I  always  read  him  as 
soon  as  I  could  get  hold  of  him,  I  had  a  particu 
lar  reason  for  wishing  to  read  him  now  :  I  had 
accepted  an  invitation  to  Bridges  for  the  follow 
ing  Sunday,  and  it  had  been  mentioned  in  Lady 
Jane's  note  that  Mr.  Vereker  was  to  be  there. 
I  was  young  enough  to  have  an  emotion  about 
meeting  a  man  of  his  renown,  and  innocent  enough 
to  believe  the  occasion  would  demand  the  display 
of  an  acquaintance  with  his  "  last." 

Corvick,  who  had  promised  a  review  of  it,  had 
not  even  had  time  to  read  it ;  he  had  gone  to 
pieces  in  consequence  of  news  requiring  —  as  on 
precipitate  reflection  he  judged  —  that  he  should 
catch  the  night-mail  to  Paris.  He  had  had  a 
telegram  from  Gwendolen  Erme  in  answer  to 


THE  FIGURE  IN   THE   CAKPET  5 

his  letter  offering  to  fly  to  her  aid.  I  knew  al 
ready  about  Gwendolen  Erme ;  I  had  never  seen 
her,  but  I  had  my  ideas,  which  were  mainly  to 
the  effect  that  Corvick  would  marry  her  if  her 
mother  would  only  die.  That  lady  seemed  now  in 
a  fair  way  to  oblige  him  ;  after  some  dreadful  mis 
take  about  some  climate  or  some  waters,  she  had 
suddenly  collapsed  on  the  return  from  abroad. 
Her  daughter,  unsupported  and  alarmed,  desiring 
to  make  a  rush  for  home  but  hesitating  at  the 
risk,  had  accepted  our  friend's  assistance,  and  it 
was  my  secret  belief  that  at  the  sight  of  him  Mrs. 
Erme  would  pull  round.  His  own  belief  was 
scarcely  to  be  called  secret ;  it  discernibly  at  any 
rate  differed  from  mine.  He  had  showed  me 
Gwendolen's  photograph  with  the  remark  that 
she  wasn't  pretty  but  was  awfully  interesting  ; 
she  had  published  at  the  age  of  nineteen  a  novel 
in  three  volumes,  "  Deep  Down,"  about  which,  in 
The  Middle,  he  had  been  really  splendid.  He 
appreciated  my  present  eagerness  and  undertook 
that  the  periodical  in  question  should  do  no  less ; 
then  at  the  last,  with  his  hand  on  the  door,  he 
said  to  me  :  "  Of  course  you'll  be  all  right,  you 
know."  Seeing  I  was  a  trifle  vague  he  added: 
"  I  mean  you  won't  be  silly." 


6  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"  Silly  —  about  Vereker  !  Why,  what  do  I  ever 
find  him  but  awfully  clever  ?  " 

"  Well,  what's  that  but  silly  ?  What  on  earth 
does  '  awfully  clever '  mean  ?  For  God's  sake  try 
to  get  at  him.  Don't  let  him  suffer  by  our  ar 
rangement.  Speak  of  him,  you  know,  if  you  can, 
as  /should  have  spoken  of  him." 

I  wondered  an  instant.  "  You  mean  as  far  and 
away  the  biggest  of  the  lot  —  that  sort  of  thing  ?  " 

Corvick  almost  groaned.  "Oh,  you  know,  I 
don't  put  them  back  to  back  that  way ;  it's  the 
infancy  of  art !  But  he  gives  me  a  pleasure  so 
rare  ;  the  sense  of  "  —  he  mused  a  little  —  "  some 
thing  or  other." 

I  wondered  again.    "  The  sense,  pray,  of  what  ?  " 

"  My  dear  man,  that's  just  what  I  want  you  to 
say  !  " 

Even  before  Corvick  had  banged  the  door  I 
had  begun,  book  in  hand,  to  prepare  myself  to 
say  it.  I  sat  up  with  Vereker  half  the  night ; 
Corvick  couldn't  have  done  more  than  that.  He 
was  awfully  clever  —  I  stuck  to  that,  but  he 
wasn't  a  bit  the  biggest  of  the  lot.  I  didn't  al 
lude  to  the  lot,  however ;  I  flattered  myself  that 
I  emerged  on  this  occasion  from  the  infancy  of 
art.  "It's  all  right,"  they  declared  vividly  at 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CAKPET         7 

the  office  ;  and  when  the  number  appeared  I  felt 
there  was  a  basis  on  which  I  could  meet  the  great 
man.  It  gave  me  confidence  for  a  day  or  two, 
and  then  that  confidence  dropped.  I  had  fancied 
him  reading  it  with  relish,  but  if  Corvick  was  not 
satisfied  how  could  Vereker  himself  be  ?  I  re 
flected  indeed  that  the  heat  of  the  admirer  was 
sometimes  grosser  even  than  the  appetite  of  the 
scribe.  Corvick  at  all  events  wrote  me  from  Paris 
a  little  ill-humouredly.  Mrs.  Erme  was  pulling 
round,  and  I  hadn't  at  all  said  what  Vereker  gave 
him  the  sense  of. 


II 


THE  effect  of  my  visit  to  Bridges  was  to  turn 
me  out  for  more  profundity.  Hugh  Vereker, 
as  I  saw  him  there,  was  of  a  contact  so  void 
of  angles  that  I  blushed  for  the  poverty  of 
imagination  involved  in  my  small  precautions. 
If  he  was  in  spirits  it  was  not  because  he  had 
read  my  review ;  in  fact  on  the  Sunday  morning 
I  felt  sure  he  hadn't  read  it,  though  The  Middle 
had  been  out  three  days  and  bloomed,  I  assured 
myself,  in  the  stiff  garden  of  periodicals  which 
gave  one  of  the  ormolu  tables  the  air  of  a  stand 
at  a  station.  The  impression  he  made  on  me 
personally  was  such  that  I  wished  him  to  read 
it,  and  I  corrected  to  this  end  with  a  surrepti 
tious  hand  what  might  be  wanting  in  the  care 
less  conspicuity  of  the  sheet.  I  am  afraid  I 
even  watched  the  result  of  my  manoeuvre,  but 
up  to  luncheon  I  watched  in  vain. 

When  afterwards,  in  the  course  of  our  gre 
garious  walk,  I  found  myself  for  half  an  hour, 

8 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CAKPET         9 

not  perhaps  without  another  manoeuvre,  at  the 
great  man's  side,  the  result  of  his  affability  was 
a  still  livelier  desire  that  he  should  not  remain 
in  ignorance  of  the  peculiar  justice  I  had  done 
him.  It  was  not  that  he  seemed  to  thirst  for 
justice ;  on  the  contrary  I  had  not  yet  caught 
in  his  talk  the  faintest  grunt  of  a  grudge  —  a 
note  for  which  my  young  experience  had  already 
given  me  an  ear.  Of  late  he  had  had  more 
recognition,  and  it  was  pleasant,  as  we  used  to 
say  in  The  Middle,  to  see  that  it  drew  him  out. 
He  wasn't  of  course  popular,  but  I  judged  one 
of  the  sources  of  his  good  humour  to  be  precisely 
that  his  success  was  independent  of  that.  He  had 
none  the  less  become  in  a  manner  the  fashion ; 
the  critics  at  least  had  put  on  a  spurt  and 
caught  up  with  him.  We  had  found  out  at 
last  how  clever  he  was,  and  he  had  had  to  make 
the  best  of  the  loss  of  his  mystery.  I  was 
strongly  tempted,  as  I  walked  beside  him,  to 
let  him  know  how  much  of  that  unveiling  was 
my  act ;  and  there  was  a  moment  when  I  prob 
ably  should  have  done  so  had  not  one  of  the 
ladies  of  our  party,  snatching  a  place  at  his 
other  elbow,  just  then  appealed  to  him  in  a 
spirit  comparatively  selfish.  It  was  very  dis- 


10  EMBAEEASSMENTS 

couraging :    I  almost   felt  the   liberty  had  been 
taken  with  myself. 

I  had  had  on  my  tongue's  end,  for  my  own 
part,  a  phrase  or  two  about  the  right  word  at 
the  right  time ;  but  later  on  I  was  glad  not  to 
have  spoken,  for  when  on  our  return  we  clus 
tered  at  tea  I  perceived  Lady  Jane,  who  had  not 
been  out  with  us,  brandishing  The  Middle  with 
her  longest  arm.  She  had  taken  it  up  at  her 
leisure ;  she  was  delighted  with  what  she  had 
found,  and  I  saw  that,  as  a  mistake  in  a  man 
may  often  be  a  felicity  in  a  woman,  she  would 
practically  do  for  me  what  I  hadn't  been  able 
to  do  for  myself.  "Some  sweet  little  truths 
that  needed  to  be  spoken,"  I  heard  her  declare, 
thrusting  the  paper  at  rather  a  bewildered  couple 
by  the  fireplace.  She  grabbed  it  away  from  them 
again  on  the  reappearance  of  Hugh  Vereker,  who 
after  our  walk  had  been  upstairs  to  change  some 
thing.  "  I  know  you  don't  in  general  look  at  this 
kind  of  thing,  but  it's  an  occasion  really  for  doing 
so.  You  haven't  seen  it  ?  Then  you  must.  The 
man  has  actually  got  at  you,  at  what  I  always 
feel,  you  know."  Lady  Jane  threw  into  her  eyes 
a  look  evidently  intended  to  give  an  idea  of 
what  she  always  felt;  but  she  added  that  she 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  11 

couldn't  have  expressed  it.  The  man  in  the 
paper  expressed  it  in  a  striking  manner.  "Just 
see  there,  and  there,  where  I've  dashed  it,  how 
he  brings  it  out."  She  had  literally  marked  for 
him  the  brightest  patches  of  my  prose,  and  if  I 
was  a  little  amused  Vereker  himself  may  well 
have  been.  He  showed  how  much  he  was  when 
before  us  all  Lady  Jane  wanted  to  read  something 
aloud.  I  liked  at  any  rate  the  way  he  defeated 
her  purpose  by  jerking  the  paper  affectionately 
out  of  her  clutch.  He  would  take  it  upstairs 
with  him,  would  look  at  it  on  going  to  dress.  He 
did  this  half  an  hour  later — I  saw  it  in  his  hand 
when  he  repaired  to  his  room.  That  was  the 
moment  at  which,  thinking  to  give  her  pleasure, 
I  mentioned  to  Lady  Jane  that  I  was  the  author 
of  the  review.  I  did  give  her  pleasure,  I  judged, 
but  perhaps  not  quite  so  much  as  I  had  expected. 
If  the  author  was  "only  me"  the  thing  didn't 
seem  quite  so  remarkable.  Hadn't  I  had  the 
effect  rather  of  diminishing  the  lustre  of  the 
article  than  of  adding  to  my  own?  Her  ladyship 
was  subject  to  the  most  extraordinary  drops.  It 
didn't  matter;  the  only  effect  I  cared  about 
was  the  one  it  would  have  on  Ve.re.ker  up  there 
by  his  bedroom  fire. 


12  EMBARRASSMENTS 

At  dinner  I  watched  for  the  signs  of  this 
impression,  tried  to  fancy  there  was  some  hap 
pier  light  in  his  eyes  ;  but  to  my  disappointment 
Lady  Jane  gave  me  no  chance  to  make  sure.  I 
had  hoped  she  would  call  triumphantly  down  the 
table,  publicly  demand  if  she  hadn't  been  right. 
The  party  was  large  —  there  were  people  from 
outside  as  well,  but  I  had  never  seen  a  table  long 
enough  to  deprive  Lady  Jane  of  a  triumph.  I 
was  just  reflecting  in  truth  that  this  interminable 
board  would  deprive  me  of  one,  when  the  guest 
next  me,  dear  woman  —  she  was  Miss  Poyle,  the 
vicar's  sister,  a  robust,  unmodulated  person — had 
the  happy  inspiration  and  the  unusual  courage 
to  address  herself  across  it  to  Vereker,  who  was 
opposite,  but  not  directly,  so  that  when  he  replied 
they  were  both  leaning  forward.  She  inquired, 
artless  body,  what  he  thought  of  Lady  Jane's 
"  panegyric,"  which  she  had  read  —  not  connect 
ing  it  however  with  her  right-hand  neighbour ; 
and  while  I  strained  my  ear  for  his  reply  I  heard 
him,  to  my  stupefaction,  call  back  gaily,  with  his 
mouth  full  of  bread:  "  Oh,  it's  all  right  —  it's 
the  usual  twaddle  !  " 

I  had  caught  Vereker's  glance  as  he  spoke,  but 
Miss  Poyle 's  surprise  was  a  fortunate  cover  for 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  13 

my  own.  "You  mean  he  doesn't  do  you  jus 
tice  ?  "  said  the  excellent  woman. 

Vereker  laughed  out,  and  I  was  happy  to  be 
able  to  do  the  same.  "It's  a  charming  article," 
he  tossed  us. 

Miss  Poyle  thrust  her  chin  half  across  the  cloth. 

"Oh  you're  so  deep!  "  she  drove  home. 

"  As  deep  as  the  ocean !  All  I  pretend  is,  the 
author  doesn't  see  —  " 

A  dish  was  at  this  point  passed  over  his 
shoulder,  and  we  had  to  wait  while  he  helped 
himself. 

"Doesn't  see  what?"  my  neighbour  continued. 

"Doesn't  see  anything." 

"Dear  me  —  how  very  stupid!" 

"  Not  a  bit,"  Vereker  laughed  again.  "  Nobody 
does." 

The  lady  on  his  further  side  appealed  to  him, 
and  Miss  Poyle  sank  back  to  me.  "Nobody  sees 
anything!"  she  cheerfully  announced;  to  which 
I  replied  that  I  had  often  thought  so  too,  but 
had  somehow  taken  the  thought  for  a  proof  on 
my  own  part  of  a  tremendous  eye.  I  didn't  tell 
her  the  article  was  mine;  and  I  observed  that 
Lady  Jane,  occupied  at  the  end  of  the  table,  had 
not  caught  Vereker's  words. 


14  EMBARRASSMENTS 

I  rather  avoided  him  after  dinner,  for  I  con 
fess  he  struck  me  as  cruelly  conceited,  and  the 
revelation  was  a  pain.  "The  usual  twaddle"  — 
my  acute  little  study!  That  one's  admiration 
should  have  had  a  reserve  or  two  could  gall  him 
to  that  point  ?  I  had  thought  him  placid,  and  he 
was  placid  enough ;  such  a  surface  was  the  hard, 
polished  glass  that  encased  the  bauble  of  his 
vanity.  I  was  really  ruffled,  the  only  comfort 
was  that  if  nobody  saw  anything  George  Corvick 
was  quite  as  much  out  of  it  as  I.  This  comfort 
however  was  not  sufficient,  after  the  ladies  had 
dispersed,  to  carry  me  in  the  proper  manner  —  I 
mean  in  a  spotted  jacket  and  humming  an  air  — 
into  the  smoking-room.  I  took  my  way  in  some 
dejection  to  bed;  but  in  the  passage  I  encoun 
tered  Mr.  Vereker,  who  had  been  up  once  more  to 
change,  coming  out  of  his  room.  He  was  hum 
ming  an  air  and  had  on  a  spotted  jacket,  and  as 
soon  as  he  saw  me  his  gaiety  gave  a  start. 

"My  dear  young  man,"  he  exclaimed,  "I'm 
so  glad  to  lay  hands  on  you!  I'm  afraid  I  most 
unwittingly  wounded  you  by  those  words  of 
mine  at  dinner  to  Miss  Poyle.  I  learned  but 
half  an  hour  ago  from  Lady  Jane  that  you  wrote 
the  little  notice  in  The  Middle." 


THE  FIGUKE  IN  THE  CARPET  15 

I  protested  that  no  bones  were  broken ;  but  he 
moved  with  me  to  my  own  door,  his  hand  on  my 
shoulder,  kindly  feeling  for  a  fracture;  and  on 
hearing  that  I  had  come  up  to  bed  he  asked  leave 
to  cross  my  threshold  and  just  tell  me  in  three 
words  what  his  qualification  of  my  remarks  had 
represented.  It  was  plain  he  really  feared  I  was 
hurt,  and  the  sense  of  his  solicitude  suddenly 
made  all  the  difference  to  me.  My  cheap  review 
fluttered  oft'  into  space,  and  the  best  things  I  had 
said  in  it  became  flat  enough  beside  the  brilliancy 
of  his  being  there.  I  can  see  him  there  still,  on 
my  rug,  in  the  firelight  and  his  spotted  jacket, 
his  fine,  clear  face  all  bright  with  the  desire  to  be 
tender  to  my  youth.  I  don't  know  what  he  had 
at  first  meant  to  say,  but  I  think  the  sight  of  my 
relief  touched  him,  excited  him,  brought  up 
words  to  his  lips  from  far  within.  It  was  so 
these  words  presently  conveyed  to  me  something 
that,  as  I  afterwards  knew,  he  had  never  uttered 
to  any  one.  I  have  always  done  justice  to  the 
generous  impulse  that  made  him  speak;  it  was 
simply  compunction  for  a  snub  unconsciously 
administered  to  a  man  of  letters  in  a  position 
inferior  to  his  own,  a  man  of  letters  moreover 
in  the  very  act  of  praising  him.  To  make  the 


16  EMBARRASSMENTS 

thing  right  he  talked  to  me  exactly  as  an  equal 
and  on  the  ground  of  what  we  both  loved  best. 
The  hour,  the  place,  the  unexpectedness  deep 
ened  the  impression:  he  couldn't  have  done  any 
thing  more  exquisitely  successful. 


Ill 


"I  DON'T  quite  know  how  to  explain  it  to 
you,"  he  said,  "but  it  was  the  very  fact  that 
your  notice  of  my  book  had  a  spice  of  intelli 
gence,  it  was  just  your  exceptional  sharpness 
that  produced  the  feeling  —  a  very  old  story 
with  me,  I  beg  you  to  believe  —  under  the 
momentary  influence  of  which  I  used  in  speak 
ing  to  that  good  lady  the  words  you  so  naturally 
resent.  I  don't  read  the  things  in  the  news 
papers  unless  they're  thrust  upon  me  as  that 
one  was  —  it's  always  one's  best  friend  that  does 
it!  But  I  used  to  read  them  sometimes  —  ten 
years  ago.  I  daresay  they  were  in  general  rather 
stupider  then;  at  any  rate  it  always  seemed  to 
me  that  they  missed  my  little  point  with  a  per 
fection  exactly  as  admirable  when  they  patted 
me  on  the  back  as  when  they  kicked  me  in  the 
shins.  Whenever  since  I've  happened  to  have  a 
glimpse  of  them  they  were  still  blazing  away — • 

<3  17 


18  EMBARRASSMENTS 

still  missing  it,  I  mean,  deliciously.  You  miss 
it,  my  dear  fellow,  with  inimitable  assurance; 
the  fact  of  your  being  awfully  clever  and  your 
article's  being  awfully  nice  doesn't  make  a  hair's 
breadth  of  difference.  It's  quite  with  you  rising 
young  men,"  Vereker  laughed,  "that  I  feel  most 
what  a  failure  I  am!" 

I  listened  with  intense  interest;  it  grew  in- 
tenser  as  he  talked.  "You  a  failure  —  heavens! 
What  then  may  your  'little  point'  happen  to 
be?" 

"Have  I  got  to  tell  you,  after  all  these  years 
and  labours  ? "  There  was  something  in  the 
friendly  reproach  of  this  —  jocosely  exaggerated 
—  that  made  me,  as  an  ardent  young  seeker  for 
truth,  blush  to  the  roots  of  my  hair.  I'm  as 
much  in  the  dark  as  ever,  though  I've  grown 
used  in  a  sense  to  my  obtuseness ;  at  that 
moment,  however,  Vereker's  happy  accent  made 
me  appear  to  myself,  and  probably  to  him,  a  rare 
donkey.  I  was  on  the  point  of  exclaiming,  "Ah, 
yes,  don't  tell  me :  for  my  honour,  for  that  of  the 
craft,  don't! "  when  he  went  on  in  a  manner  that 
showed  he  had  read  my  thought  and  had  his  own 
idea  of  the  probability  of  our  some  day  redeem 
ing  ourselves.  "By  my  little  point  I  mean  — 


THE  FIGUKE   IN  THE   CARPET  19 

what  shall  I  call  it?  —  the  particular  thing  I've 
written  my  books  most  for.  Isn't  there  for  every 
writer  a  particular  thing  of  that  sort,  the  thing 
that  most  makes  him  apply  himself,  the  thing 
without  the  effort  to  achieve  which  he  wouldn't 
write  at  all,  the  very  passion  of  his  passion,  the 
part  of  the  business  in  which,  for  him,  the  flame 
of  art  burns  most  intensely?  Well,  it's  that!" 

I  considered  a  moment.  I  was  fascinated  — 
easily,  you'll  say ;  but  I  wasn't  going  after  all  to 
be  put  off  my  guard.  "Your  description's  cer 
tainly  beautiful,  but  it  doesn't  make  what  you 
describe  very  distinct." 

"  I  promise  you  it  would  be  distinct  if  it  should 
dawn  on  you  at  all."  I  saw  that  the  charm  of 
our  topic  overflowed  for  my  companion  into  an 
emotion  as  lively  as  my  own.  "  At  any  rate,"  he 
went  on,  "  I  can  speak  for  myself :  there's  an 
idea  in  my  work  without  which  I  wouldn't  have 
given  a  straw  for  the  whole  job.  It's  the  finest, 
fullest  intention  of  the  lot,  and  the  application 
of  it  has  been,  I  think,  a  triumph  of  patience,  of 
ingenuity.  I  ought  to  leave  that  to  somebody 
else  to  say ;  but  that  nobody  does  say  it  is  pre 
cisely  what  we're  talking  about.  It  stretches, 
this  little  trick  of  mine,  from  book  to  book,  and 


20  EMBARRASSMENTS 

everything  else,  comparatively,  plays  over  the 
surface  of  it.  The  order,  the  form,  the  texture 
of  my  books  will  perhaps  some  day  constitute  for 
the  initiated  a  complete  representation  of  it.  So 
it's  naturally  the  thing  for  the  critic  to  look  for. 
It  strikes  me,"  my  visitor  added,  smiling,  "even 
as  the  thing  for  the  critic  to  find." 

This  seemed  a  responsibility  indeed.  "You 
call  it  a  little  trick?" 

"  That's  only  my  little  modesty.  It's  really  an 
exquisite  scheme." 

"  And  you  hold  that  you've  carried  the  scheme 
out?" 

"The  way  I've  carried  it  out  is  the  thing  in 
life  I  think  a  bit  well  of  myself  for." 

I  was  silent  a  moment.  "  Don't  you  think  you 
ought  —  just  a  trifle  —  to  assist  the  critic  ?  " 

"Assist  him?  What  else  have  I  done  with 
every  stroke  of  my  pen  ?  I've  shouted  my  inten 
tion  in  his  great  blank  face  !  "  At  this,  laughing 
out  again,  Vereker  laid  his  hand  on  my  shoulder 
to  show  that  the  allusion  was  not  to  my  personal 
appearance. 

"But  you  talk  about  the  initiated.  There 
must  therefore,  you  see,  be  initiation." 

"  What  else  in  heaven's  name  is  criticism  sup- 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  21 

posed  to  be  ?  "  I'm  afraid  I  coloured  at  this  too  ; 
but  I  took  refuge  in  repeating  that  his  account 
of  his  silver  lining  was  poor  in  something  or 
other  that  a  plain  man  knows  things  by.  "That's 
only  because  you've  never  had  a  glimpse  of  it," 
he  replied.  "  If  you  had  had  one  the  element  in 
question  would  soon  have  become  practically  all 
you'd  see.  To  me  it's  exactly  as  palpable  as  the 
marble  of  this  chimney.  Besides,  the  critic  just 
isn't  a  plain  man :  if  he  were,  pray,  what  would 
he  be  doing  in  his  neighbour's  garden  ?  You're 
anything  but  a  plain  man  yourself,  and  the  very 
raison  d'etre  of  you  all  is  that  you're  little  demons 
of  subtlety.  If  my  great  affair's  a  secret,  that's 
only  because  it's  a  secret  in  spite  of  itself  —  the 
amazing  event  has  made  it  one.  I  not  only  never 
took  the  smallest  precaution  to  do  so,  but  never 
dreamed  of  any  such  accident.  If  I  had  I 
shouldn't  in  advance  have  had  the  heart  to  go 
on.  As  it  was  I  only  became  aware  little  by 
little,  and  meanwhile  I  had  done  my  work." 

"  And  now  you  quite  like  it  ?  "  I  risked. 

"My  work?" 

"Your  secret.     It's  the  same  thing." 

"Your  guessing  that,"  Vereker  replied,  "is  a 
proof  that  you're  as  clever  as  I  say  !  "  I  was 


22  EMBARRASSMENTS 

encouraged  by  this  to  remark  that  he  would  clearly 
be  pained  to  part  with  it,  and  he  confessed  that 
it  was  indeed  with  him  now  the  great  amuse 
ment  of  life.  "  I  live  almost  to  see  if  it  will  ever 
be  detected."  He  looked  at  me  for  a  jesting 
challenge  ;  something  at  the  back  of  his  eyes 
seemed  to  peep  out.  "  But  I  needn't  worry  —  it 
won't !  " 

"You  fire  me  as  I've  never  been  fired,"  I 
returned  ;  "  you  make  me  determined  to  do  or 
die."  Then  I  asked:  "Is  it  a  kind  of  esoteric 
message  ?  " 

His  countenance  fell  at  this  —  he  put  out  his 
hand  as  if  to  bid  me  good-night.  "  Ah,  my  dear 
fellow,  it  can't  be  described  in  cheap  journalese  ! " 

I  knew  of  course  he  would  be  awfully  fastidi 
ous,  but  our  talk  had  made  me  feel  how  much  his 
nerves  were  exposed.  I  was  unsatisfied — I  kept 
hold  of  his  hand.  "I  won't  make  use  of  the 
expression  then,"  I  said,  "  in  the  article  in  which 
I  shall  eventually  announce  my  discovery,  though 
I  daresay  I  shall  have  hard  work  to  do  without  it. 
But  meanwhile,  just  to  hasten  that  difficult  birth, 
can't  you  give  a  fellow  a  clue  ?  "  I  felt  much 
more  at  my  ease. 

"My  whole   lucid   effort  gives   him   a   clue — • 


THE   FIGURE   IN   THE   CARPET  23 

every  page  and  line  and  letter.  The  thing's  as 
concrete  there  as  a  bird  in  a  cage,  a  bait  on  a 
hook,  a  piece  of  cheese  in  a  mouse-trap.  It's 
stuck  into  every  volume  as  your  foot  is  stuck  into 
your  shoe.  It  governs  every  line,  it  chooses 
every  word,  it  dots  every  i,  it  places  every 
comma." 

I  scratched  my  head.  "  Is  it  something  in  the 
style  or  something  in  the  thought  ?  An  element 
of  form  or  an  element  of  feeling  ?  " 

He  indulgently  shook  my  hand  again,  and  I 
felt  my  questions  to  be  crude  and  my  distinc 
tions  pitiful.  "  Good-night,  my  dear  boy  — 
don't  bother  about  it.  After  all,  you  do  like  a 
fellow." 

"And  a  little  intelligence  might  spoil  it?"  I 
still  detained  him. 

He  hesitated.  "  Well,  you've  got  a  heart  in 
your  body.  Is  that  an  element  of  form  or  an 
element  of  feeling?  What  I  contend  that  no 
body  has  ever  mentioned  in  my  work  is  the 
organ  of  life." 

"I  see  —  it's  some  idea  about  life,  some  sort 
of  philosophy.  Unless  it  be,"  I  added  with  the 
eagerness  of  a  thought  perhaps  still  happier, 
"some  kind  of  game  you're  up  to  with  your 


24  EMBARRASSMENTS 

style,  something  you're  after  in  the  language. 
Perhaps  it's  a  preference  for  the  letter  P  !  "  I 
ventured  profanely  to  break  out.  "Papa,  pota 
toes,  prunes  —  that  sort  of  thing  ?  "  He  was 
suitably  indulgent :  he  only  said  I  hadn't  got 
the  right  letter.  But  his  amusement  was  over; 
I  could  see  he  was  bored.  There  was  never 
theless  something  else  I  had  absolutely  to  learn. 
"Should  you  be  able,  pen  in  hand,  to  state  it 
clearly  yourself  —  to  name  it,  phrase  it,  formu 
late  it?" 

"Oh,"  he  almost  passionately  sighed,  "if  I 
were  only,  pen  in  hand,  one  of  you  chaps !  " 

"  That  would  be  a  great  chance  for  you  of 
course.  But  why  should  you  despise  us  chaps 
for  not  doing  what  you  can't  do  yourself  ?  " 

"  Can't  do  ?  "  He  opened  his  eyes.  "  Haven't 
I  done  it  in  twenty  volumes?  I  do  it  in  my 
way,"  he  continued.  "You  don't  do  it  in 
yours." 

"Ours  is  so  devilish  difficult,"  I  weakly  ob 
served. 

"So  is  mine.  We  each  choose  our  own. 
There's  no  compulsion.  You  won't  come  down 
and  smoke?  " 

"No.     I  want  to  think  this  thing  out." 


THE  FIGUEB  IN  THE    CARPET  25 

"You'll  tell  me  then  in  the  morning  that 
you've  laid  me  bare  ?  " 

"  I'll  see  what  I  can  do  ;  I'll  sleep  on  it.  But 
just  one  word  more,"  I  added.  We  had  left  the 
room  —  I  walked  again  with  him  a  few  steps 
along  the  passage.  "This  extraordinary  'gen 
eral  intention,'  as  you  call  it  —  for  that's  the 
most  vivid  description  I  can  induce  you  to  make 
of  it  —  is  then  generally  a  sort  of  buried  treas 
ure?" 

His  face  lighted.  "Yes,  call  it  that,  though 
it's  perhaps  not  for  me  to  do  so." 

"  Nonsense  !  "  I  laughed.  "  You  know  you're 
hugely  proud  of  it." 

"Well,  I  didn't  propose  to  tell  you  so;  but  it 
is  the  joy  of  my  soul !  " 

"You  mean  it's  a  beauty  so  rare,  so  great?" 

He  hesitated  a  moment.  "  The  loveliest  thing 
in  the  world !  "  We  had  stopped,  and  on  these' 
words  he  left  me  ;  but  at  the  end  of  the  corridor, 
while  I  looked  after  him  rather  yearningly,  he 
turned  and  caught  sight  of  my  puzzled  face. 
It  made  him  earnestly,  indeed  I  thought  quite 
anxiously,  shake  his  head  and  wave  his  finger. 
"  Give  it  up  —  give  it  up  !  " 

This    wasn't    a    challenge  —  it    was    fatherly 


26  EMBARRASSMENTS 

advice.  If  I  had  had  one  of  his  books  at  hand 
I  would  have  repeated  my  recent  act  of  faith  — 
I  would  have  spent  half  the  night  with  him. 
At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  not  sleeping, 
remembering  moreover  how  indispensable  he  was 
to  Lady  Jane,  I  stole  down  to  the  library  with  a 
candle.  There  wasn't,  so  far  as  I  could  discover, 
a  line  of  his  writing  in  the  house. 


IV 


RETURNING  to  town  I  feverishly  collected 
them  all ;  I  picked  out  each  in  its  order  and 
held  it  up  to  the  light.  This  gave  me  a  mad 
dening  month,  in  the  course  of  which  several 
things  took  place.  One  of  these,  the  last,  I  may 
as  well  immediately  mention,  was  that  I  acted 
on  Vereker's  advice  :  I  renounced  my  ridiculous 
attempt.  I  could  really  make  nothing  of  the 
business ;  it  proved  a  dead  loss.  After  all, 
before,  as  he  had  himself  observed,  I  liked  him; 
and  what  now  occurred  was  simply  that  my  new 
intelligence  and  vain  preoccupation  damaged  my 
liking.  I  not  only  failed  to  find  his  general 
intention  —  I  found  myself  missing  the  subor 
dinate  intentions  I  had  formerly  found.  His 
books  didn't  even  remain  the  charming  things 
they  had  been  for  me ;  the  exasperation  of  my 
search  put  me  out  of  conceit  of  them.  Instead 
of  being  a  pleasure  the  more  they  became  a  re* 

27 


28  EMBARRASSMENTS 

source  the  less ;  for  from  the  moment  I  was 
unable  to  follow  up  the  author's  hint  I  of  course 
felt  it  a  point  of  honour  not  to  make  use  profes 
sionally  of  my  knowledge  of  them.  I  had  no 
knowledge  —  nobody  had  any.  It  was  humiliat 
ing,  but  I  could  bear  it  —  they  only  annoyed  me 
now.  At  last  they  even  bored  me,  and  I  ac 
counted  for  my  confusion  —  perversely,  I  con 
fess  —  by  the  idea  that  Vereker  had  made  a  fool 
of  me.  The  buried  treasure  was  a  bad  joke,  the 
general  intention  a  monstrous  pose. 

The  great  incident  of  the  time  however  was 
that  I  told  George  Corvick  all  about  the  matter 
and  that  my  information  had  an  immense  effect 
upon  him.  He  had  at  last  come  back,  but  so, 
unfortunately,  had  Mrs.  Erme,  and  there  was  as 
yet,  I  could  see,  no  question  of  his  nuptials.  He 
was  immensely  stirred  up  by  the  anecdote  I  had 
brought  from  Bridges ;  it  fell  in  so  completely 
with  the  sense  he  had  had  from  the  first  that 
there  was  more  in  Vereker  than  met  the  eye. 
When  I  remarked  that  the  eye  seemed  what  the 
printed  page  had  been  expressly  invented  to  meet 
he  immediately  accused  me  of  being  spiteful  be 
cause  I  had  been  foiled.  Our  commerce  had 
always  that  pleasant  latitude.  The  thing  Vere- 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE   CARPET  29 

ker  had  mentioned  to  me  was  exactly  the  thing 
he,  Corvick,  had  wanted  me  to  speak  of  in  my 
review.  On  my  suggesting  at  last  that  with  the 
assistance  I  had  now  given  him  he  would  doubt 
less  be  prepared  to  speak  of  it  himself  he  ad 
mitted  freely  that  before  doing  this  there  was 
more  he  must  understand.  What  he  would  have 
said,  had  he  reviewed  the  new  book,  was  that 
there  was  evidently  in  the  writer's  inmost  art 
something  to  be  understood.  I  hadn't  so  much 
as  hinted  at  that :  no  wonder  the  writer  hadn't 
been  flattered !  I  asked  Corvick  what  he  really 
considered  he  meant  by  his  own  supersubtlety, 
and,  unmistakably  kindled,  he  replied  :  "  It  isn't 
for  the  vulgar  —  it  isn't  for  the  vulgar !  "  He 
had  hold  of  the  tail  of  something  ;  he  would  pull 
hard,  pull  it  right  out.  He  pumped  me  dry  on 
Vereker's  strange  confidence  and,  pronouncing 
me  the  luckiest  of  mortals,  mentioned  half  a 
dozen  questions  he  wished  to  goodness  I  had  had 
the  gumption  to  put.  Yet  on  the  other  hand  he 
didn't  want  to  be  told  too  much  —  it  would  spoil 
the  fun  of  seeing  what  would  come.  The  failure 
of  my  fun  was  at  the  moment  of  our  meeting  not 
complete,  but  I  saw  it  ahead,  and  Corvick  saw 
that  I  saw  it.  I,  on  my  side,  saw  likewise  that 


30  EMBARRASSMENTS 

one  of  the  first  things  he  would  do  would  be  to 
rush  off  with  my  story  to  Gwendolen. 

On  the  very  day  after  my  talk  with  him  I  was 
surprised  by  the  receipt  of  a  note  from  Hugh 
Vereker,  to  whom  our  encounter  at  Bridges  had 
been  recalled,  as  he  mentioned,  by  his  falling,  in 
a  magazine,  on  some  article  to  which  my  signa 
ture  was  appended.  "  I  read  it  with  great  pleas 
ure,"  he  wrote,  "  and  remembered  under  its  influ 
ence  our  lively  conversation  by  your  bedroom  fire. 
The  consequence  of  this  has  been  that  I  begin  to 
measure  the  temerity  of  my  having  saddled  you 
with  a  knowledge  that  you  may  find  something 
of  a  burden.  Now  that  the  fit's  over  I  can't 
imagine  how  I  came  to  be  moved  so  much  beyond 
my  wont.  I  had  never  before  related,  no  matter 
in  what  expansion,  the  history  of  my  little  secret, 
and  I  shall  never  speak  of  the  business  again.  I 
was  accidentally  so  much  more  explicit  with  you 
than  it  had  ever  entered  into  my  game  to  be,  that 
I  find  this  game  —  I  mean  the  pleasure  of  playing 
it  —  suffers  considerably.  In  short,  if  you  can 
understand  it,  I've  spoiled  a  part  of  my  fun.  I 
really  don't  want  to  give  anybody  what  I  believe 
you  clever  young  men  call  the  tip.  That's  of 
course  a  selfish  solicitude,  and  I  name  it  to  you 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  31 

for  what  it  may  be  worth  to  you.  If  you're  dis 
posed  to  humour  me,  don't  repeat  my  revelation. 
Think  me  demented  —  it's  your  right ;  but  don't 
tell  anybody  why." 

The  sequel  to  this  communication  was  that  as 
early  on  the  morrow  as  I  dared  I  drove  straight 
to  Mr.  Vereker's  door.  He  occupied  in  those 
years  one  of  the  honest  old  houses  in  Kensington- 
square.  He  received  me  immediately,  and  as  soon 
as  I  came  in  I  saw  I  had  not  lost  my  power  to 
minister  to  his  mirth.  He  laughed  out  at  the  sight 
of  my  face,  which  doubtless  expressed  my  pertur 
bation.  I  had  been  indiscreet  —  my  compunction 
was  great.  "I  have  told  somebody,"  I  panted, 
"  and  I'm  sure  that  person  will  by  this  time  have 
told  somebody  else  !  It's  a  woman,  into  the  bar 
gain." 

"  The  person  you've  told  ?  " 

"  No,  the  other  person.  I'm  quite  sure  he  must 
have  told  her." 

"  For  all  the  good  it  will  do  her  —  or  do  me ! 
A  woman  will  never  find  out." 

"  No,  but  she'll  talk  all  over  the  place  :  she'll 
do  just  what  you  don't  want." 

Vereker  thought  a  moment,  but  he  was  not  so 
disconcerted  as  I  had  feared  :  he  felt  that  if  the 


32  EMBARRASSMENTS 

harm  was  done  it  only  served  him  right.  "It 
doesn't  matter — don't  worry." 

"  I'll  do  my  best,  I  promise  you,  that  your  talk 
with  me  shall  go  no  further." 

"Very  good  ;  do  what  you  can." 

"  In  the  meantime,"  I  pursued,  "  George  Cor- 
vick's  possession  of  the  tip  may,  on  his  part,  really 
lead  to  something." 

"  That  will  be  a  brave  day. " 

I  told  him  about  Corvick's  cleverness,  his  ad 
miration,  the  intensity  of  his  interest  in  my 
anecdote  ;  and  without  making  too  much  of  the 
divergence  of  our  respective  estimates  mentioned 
that  my  friend  was  already  of  opinion  that  he  saw 
much  further  into  a  certain  affair  than  most  peo 
ple.  He  was  quite  as  fired  as  I  had  been  at 
Bridges.  He  was  moreover  in  love  with  the 
young  lady  :  perhaps  the  two  together  would 
puzzle  something  out. 

Vereker  seemed  struck  with  this.  "Do  you 
mean  they're  to  be  married  ?  " 

"I  daresay  that's  what  it  will  come  to." 

"That  may  help  them,"  he  conceded,  "but  we 
must  give  them  time  !  " 

I  spoke  of  my  own  renewed  assault  and  con- 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  33 

fessed  my  difficulties  ;  whereupon  he  repeated  his 
former  advice  :  "  Give  it  up,  give  it  up !  "  He 
evidently  didn't  think  me  intellectually  equipped 
for  the  adventure.  I  stayed  half  an  hour,  and  he 
was  most  good-natured,  but  I  couldn't  help  pro 
nouncing  him  a  man  of  shifting  moods.  He  had 
been  free  with  me  in  a  mood,  he  had  repented  in  a 
mood,  and  now  in  a  mood  he  had  turned  indiffer 
ent.  This  general  levity  helped  me  to  believe 
that,  so  far  as  the  subject  of  the  tip  went,  there 
wasn't  much  in  it.  I  contrived  however  to  make 
him  answer  a  few  more  questions  about  it,  though 
he  did  so  with  visible  impatience.  For  himself, 
beyond  doubt,  the  thing  we  were  all  so  blank 
about  was  vividly  there.  It  was  something,  I 
guessed,  in  the  primal  plan,  something  like  a  com 
plex  figure  in  a  Persian  carpet.  He  highly  ap 
proved  of  this  image  when  I  used  it,  and  he  used 
another  himself.  "  It's  the  very  string,"  he  said, 
"  that  my  pearls  are  strung  on  !  "  The  reason  of 
his  note  to  me  had  been  that  he  really  didn't  want 
to  give  us  a  grain  of  succour  —  our  destiny  was  a 
thing  too  perfect  in  its  way  to  touch.  He  had 
formed  the  habit  of  depending  upon  it,  and  if  the 
spell  was  to  break  it  must  break  by  some  force 


34  EMBARRASSMENTS 

of  its  own.  He  comes  back  to  me  from  that  last 
occasion  —  for  I  was  never  to  speak  to  him  again 
—  as  a  man  with  some  safe  secret  for  enjoyment. 
I  wondered  as  I  walked  away  where  he  had  got 
his  tip. 


WHEN  I  spoke  to  George  Corvick  of  the  cau 
tion  I  had  received  he  made  me  feel  that  any 
doubt  of  his  delicacy  would  be  almost  an  insult. 
He  had  instantly  told  Gwendolen,  but  Gwen 
dolen's  ardent  response  was  in  itself  a  pledge  of 
discretion.  The  question  would  now  absorb 
them,  and  they  would  enjoy  their  fun  too  much 
to  wish  to  share  it  with  the  crowd.  They  ap 
peared  to  have  caught  instinctively  Vereker's 
peculiar  notion  of  fun.  Their  intellectual  pride, 
however,  was  not  such  as  to  make  them  indif 
ferent  to  any  further  light  I  might  throw  on  the 
affair  they  had  in  hand.  They  were  indeed  of 
the  "  artistic  temperament,"  and  I  was  freshly 
struck  with  my  colleague's  power  to  excite  him 
self  over  a  question  of  art.  He  called  it  letters, 
he  called  it  life  —  it  was  all  one  thing.  In  what 
he  said  I  now  seemed  to  understand  that  he  spoke 

35 


36  EMBARRASSMENTS 

equally  for  Gwendolen,  to  whom,  as  soon  as  Mrs. 
Erme  was  sufficiently  better  to  allow  her  a  little 
leisure,  he  made  a  point  of  introducing  me.  I 
remember  our  calling  together  one  Sunday  in 
August  at  a  huddled  house  in  Chelsea,  and  my 
renewed  envy  of  Corvick's  possession  of  a  friend 
who  had  some  light  to  mingle  with  his  own.  He 
could  say  things  to  her  that  I  could  never  say 
to  him.  She  had  indeed  no  sense  of  humour  and, 
with  her  pretty  way  of  holding  her  head  on  one 
side,  was  one  of  those  persons  whom  you  want, 
as  the  phrase  is,  to  shake,  but  who  have  learnt 
Hungarian  by  themselves.  She  conversed  per 
haps  in  Hungarian  with  Corvick;  she  had  re 
markably  little  English  for  his  friend.  Corvick 
afterwards  told  me  that  I  had  chilled  her  by  my 
apparent  indisposition  to  oblige  her  with  the  de 
tail  of  what  Vereker  had  said  to  me.  I  admitted 
that  I  felt  I  had  given  thought  enough  to  this 
exposure:  hadn't  I  even  made  up  my  mind  that 
it  was  hollow,  wouldn't  stand  the  test?  The 
importance  they  attached  to  it  was  irritating  — 
it  rather  envenomed  my  dissent. 

That  statement  looks  unamiable,  and  what  prob 
ably  happened  was  that  I  felt  humiliated  at  see 
ing  other  persons  derive  a  daily  joy  from  an 


THE  FIGURE   IN   THE   CARPET  37 

experiment  which  had  brought  me  only  chagrin. 
I  was  out  in  the  cold  while,  by  the  evening  fire, 
under  the  lamp,  they  followed  the  chase  for  which 
I  myself  had  sounded  the  horn.  They  did  as  I 
had  done,  only  more  deliberately  and  sociably  — . 
they  went  over  their  author  from  the  beginning. 
There  was  no  hurry,  Corvick  said  —  the  future 
was  before  them  and  the  fascination  could  only 
grow;  they  would  take  him  page  by  page,  as 
they  would  take  one  of  the  classics,  inhale  him 
in  slow  draughts  and  let  him  sink  deep  in.  I 
doubt  whether  they  would  have  got  so  wound  up 
if  they  had  not  been  in  love:  poor  Vereker's 
secret  gave  them  endless  occasion  to  put  their 
young  heads  together.  None  the  less  it  repre 
sented  the  kind  of  problem  for  which  Corvick  had 
a  special  aptitude,  drew  out  the  particular  pointed 
patience  of  which,  had  he  lived,  he  would  have 
given  more  striking  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  more 
fruitful  examples.  He  at  least  was,  in  Vereker's 
words,  a  little  demon  of  subtlety.  We  had  begun 
by  disputing,  but  I  soon  saw  that  without  my 
stirring  a  finger  his  infatuation  would  have  its 
bad  hours.  He  would  bound  off  on  false  scents 
as  I  had  done  —  he  would  clap  his  hands  over 
new  lights  and  see  them  blown  out  by  the  wind 


38  EMBARRASSMENTS 

of  the  turned  page.  He  was  like  nothing,  I  told 
him,  but  the  maniacs  who  embrace  some  bedlamit- 
ical  theory  of  the  cryptic  character  of  Shake 
speare.  To  this  he  replied  that  if  we  had  had 
Shakespeare's  own  word  for  his  being  cryptic  he 
would  immediately  have  accepted  it.  The  case 
there  was  altogether  different  —  we  had  nothing 
but  the  word  of  Mr.  Snooks.  I  rejoined  that  I 
was  stupefied  to  see  him  attach  such  importance 
even  to  the  word  of  Mr.  Vereker.  He  inquired 
thereupon  whether  I  treated  Mr.  Vereker's  word 
as  a  lie.  I  wasn't  perhaps  prepared,  in  my  un 
happy  rebound,  to  go  as  far  as  that,  but  I  insisted 
that  till  the  contrary  was  proved  I  should  view 
it  as  too  fond  an  imagination.  I  didn't,  I  con 
fess,  say  —  I  didn't  at  that  time  quite  know  — 
all  I  felt.  Deep  down,  as  Miss  Erme  would  have 
said,  I  was  uneasy,  I  was  expectant  At  the  core 
of  my  personal  confusion  —  for  my  curiosity  lived 
in  its  ashes  —  was  the  sharpness  of  a  sense  that 
Corvick  would  at  last  probably  come  out  some 
where.  He  made,  in  defence  of  his  credulity, 
a  great  point  of  the  fact  that  from  of  old,  in  his 
study  of  this  genius,  he  had  caught  whiffs  and 
hints  of  he  didn't  know  what,  faint  wandering 
notes  of  a  hidden  music.  That  was  just  the 


THE   FIGURE  IN   THE   CARPET  39 

rarity,  that  was  the  charm :  it  fitted  so  perfectly 
into  what  I  reported. 

If  I  returned  on  several  occasions  to  the  little 
house  in  Chelsea  I  daresay  it  was  as  much  for 
news  of  Vereker  as  for  news  of  Miss  Erme's 
mamma.  The  hours  spent  there  by  Corvick  were 
present  to  my  fancy  as  those  of  a  chessplayer 
bent  with  a  silent  scowl,  all  the  lamplit  winter, 
over  his  board  and  his  moves.  As  my  imagina 
tion  filled  it  out  the  picture  held  me  fast.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  table  was  a  ghostlier  form, 
the  faint  figure  of  an  antagonist  good-humouredly 
but  a  little  wearily  secure  —  an  antagonist  who 
leaned  back  in  his  chair  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets  and  a  smile  on  his  fine  clear  face.  Close 
to  Corvick,  behind  him,  was  a  girl  who  had  begun 
to  strike  me  as  pale  and  wasted  and  even,  on 
more  familiar  view,  as  rather  handsome,  and  who 
rested  on  his  shoulder  and  hung  upon  his  moves. 
He  would  take  up  a  chessman  and  hold  it  poised 
a  while  over  one  of  the  little  squares,  and  then  he 
would  put  it  back  in  its  place  with  a  long  sigh  of 
disappointment.  The  young  lady,  at  this,  would 
slightly  but  uneasily  shift  her  position  and  look 
across,  very  hard,  very  long,  very  strangely,  at 
their  dim  participant.  I  had  asked  them  at  an 


40  EMBARRASSMENTS 

early  stage  of  the  business  if  it  mightn't  contrib 
ute  to  their  success  to  have  some  closer  commu 
nication  with  him.  The  special  circumstances 
would  surely  be  held  to  have  given  me  a  right 
to  introduce  them.  Corvick  immediately  replied 
that  he  had  no  wish  to  approach  the  altar  before 
he  had  prepared  the  sacrifice.  He  quite  agreed 
with  our  friend  both  as  to  the  sport  and  as  to  the 
honour  —  he  would  bring  down  the  animal  with 
his  own  rifle.  When  I  asked  him  if  Miss  Erme 
were  as  keen  a  shot  he  said  after  an  hesitation: 
"No;  I'm  ashamed  to  say  she  wants  to  set  a  trap. 
She'd  give  anything  to  see  him;  she  says  she 
requires  another  tip.  She's  really  quite  morbid 
about  it.  But  she  must  play  fair — she  shan't 
see  him!  "  he  emphatically  added.  I  had  a  sus 
picion  that  they  had  even  quarrelled  a  little  on 
the  subject  —  a  suspicion  not  corrected  by  the 
way  he  more  than  once  exclaimed  to  me :  "  She's 
quite  incredibly  literary,  you  know  —  quite  fan 
tastically!  "  I  remember  his  saying  of  her  that 
she  felt  in  italics  and  thought  in  capitals.  "  Oh, 
when  I've  run  him  to  earth,"  he  also  said,  "  then, 
you  know,  I  shall  knock  at  his  door.  Rather  — 
I  beg  you  to  believe.  I'll  have  it  from  his  own 
lips:  'Right  you  are,  my  boy;  you've  done  it 


THE  FIGURE   IN  THE   CARPET  41 

this  time ! '     He  shall  crown  me  victor  —  with  the 
critical  laurel." 

Meanwhile  he  really  avoided  the  chances  Lon 
don  life  might  have  given  him  of  meeting  the 
distinguished  novelist ;  a  danger  however  that 
disappeared  with  Vereker's  leaving  England  for 
an  indefinite  absence,  as  the  newspapers  an 
nounced—going  to  the  south  for  motives  con 
nected  with  the  health  of  his  wife,  which  had 
long  kept  her  in  retirement.  A  year — more 
than  a  year  —  had  elapsed  since  the  incident  at 
Bridges,  but  I  had  not  encountered  him  again.  I 
think  at  bottom  I  was  rather  ashamed  —  I  hated 
to  remind  him  that  though  I  had  irremediably 
missed  his  point  a  reputation  for  acuteness  was 
rapidly  overtaking  me.  This  scruple  led  me  a 
dance;  kept  me  out  of  Lady  Jane's  house,  made 
me  even  decline,  when  in  spite  of  my  bad  man 
ners  she  was  a  second  time  so  good  as  to  make 
me  a  sign,  an  invitation  to  her  beautiful  seat. 
I  once  saw  her  with  Vereker  at  a  concert  and 
was  sure  I  was  seen  by  them,  but  I  slipped  out 
without  being  caught.  I  felt,  as  on  that  occasion 
I  splashed  along  in  the  rain,  that  I  couldn't  have 
done  anything  else;  and  yet  I  remember  saying 
to  myself  that  it  was  hard,  was  even  cruel.  Not 


42  EMBARRASSMENTS 

only  had  I  lost  the  books,  but  I  had  lost  the  man 
himself :  they  and  their  author  had  been  alike 
spoiled  for  me.  I  knew  too  which  was  the  loss 
I  most  regretted.  I  had  liked  the  man  still  bet 
ter  than  I  had  liked  the  books. 


VI 


Six  months  after  Vereker  had  left  England 
George  Corvick,  who  made  his  living  by  his  pen, 
contracted  for  a  piece  of  work  which  imposed  on 
him  an  absence  of  some  length  and  a  journey 
of  some  difficulty,  and  his  undertaking  of  which 
was  much  of  a  surprise  to  me.  His  brother-in- 
law  had  become  editor  of  a  great  provincial 
paper,  and  the  great  provincial  paper,  in  a  fine 
flight  of  fancy,  had  conceived  the  idea  of  send 
ing  a  "  special  commissioner  "  to  India.  Special 
commissioners  had  begun,  in  the  "metropolitan 
press,"  to  be  the  fashion,  and  the  journal  in 
question  felt  that  it  had  passed  too  long  for 
a  mere  country  cousin.  Corvick  had  no  hand, 
I  knew,  for  the  big  brush  of  the  correspondent, 
but  that  was  his  brother-in-law's  affair,  and  the 
fact  that  a  particular  task  was  not  in  his  line 
was  apt  to  be  with  himself  exactly  a  reason 
for  accepting  it.  He  was  prepared  to  out-Herod 
the  metropolitan  press;  he  took  solemn  precau- 

43 


44  EMBARRASSMENTS 

tions  against  priggishness,  he  exquisitely  out 
raged  taste.  Nobody  ever  knew  it  —  the  taste 
was  all  his  own.  In  addition  to  his  expenses 
he  was  to  be  conveniently  paid,  and  I  found 
myself  able  to  help  him,  for  the  usual  fat  book, 
to  a  plausible  arrangement  with  the  usual  fat 
publisher.  I  naturally  inferred  that  his  obvious 
desire  to  make  a  little  money  was  not  uncon 
nected  with  the  prospect  of  a  union  with  Gwen 
dolen  Erme.  I  was  aware  that  her  mother's 
opposition  was  largely  addressed  to  his  want  of 
means  and  of  lucrative  abilities,  but  it  so  hap 
pened  that,  on  my  saying  the  last  time  I  saw 
him  something  that  bore  on  the  question  of  his 
separation  from  our  young  lady,  he  exclaimed 
with  an  emphasis  that  startled  me :  "  Ah,  I'm 
not  a  bit  engaged  to  her,  you  know !  " 

"Not  overtly,"  I  answered,  "because  her 
mother  doesn't  like  you.  But  I've  always  taken 
for  granted  a  private  understanding." 

"Well,  there  was  one.  But  there  isn't  now." 
That  was  all  he  said,  except  something  about 
Mrs.  Ernie's  having  got  on  her  feet  again  in 
the  most  extraordinary  way  —  a  remark  from 
which  I  gathered  he  wished  me  to  think  he 
meant  that  private  understandings  were  of  little 


THE  FIGURE  IN   THE   CARPET  45 

use  when  the  doctor  didn't  share  them.  What 
I  took  the  liberty  of  really  thinking  was  that 
the  girl  might  in  some  way  have  estranged  him. 
Well,  if  he  had  taken  the  turn  of  jealousy 
for  instance  it  could  scarcely  be  jealousy  of 
me.  In  that  case  (besides  the  absurdity  of  it) 
he  wouldn't  have  gone  away  to  leave  us  to 
gether.  For  some  time  before  his  departure 
we  had  indulged  in  no  allusion  to  the  buried 
treasure,  and  from  his  silence,  of  which  mine 
was  the  consequence,  I  had  drawn  a  sharp  con 
clusion.  His  courage  had  dropped,  his  ardour 
had  gone  the  way  of  mine  —  this  inference  at 
least  he  left  me  to  enjoy.  More  than  that  he 
couldn't  do ;  he  couldn't  face  the  triumph  with 
which  I  might  have  greeted  an  explicit  admis 
sion.  He  needn't  have  been  afraid,  poor  dear, 
for  I  had  by  this  time  lost  all  need  to  triumph. 
In  fact  I  considered  that  I  showed  magnanimity 
in  not  reproaching  him  with  his  collapse,  for  the 
sense  of  his  having  thrown  up  the  game  made 
me  feel  more  than  ever  how  much  I  at  last 
depended  on  him.  If  Corvick  had  broken  down 
I  should  never  know;  no  one  would  be  of  any 
use  if  he  wasn't.  It  wasn't  a  bit  true  that  I 
had  ceased  to  care  for  knowledge;  little  by 


46  EMBARRASSMENTS 

little  my  curiosity  had  not  only  begun  to  ache 
again,  but  had  become  the  familiar  torment  of 
my  consciousness.  There  are  doubtless  people  to 
whom  torments  of  such  an  order  appear  hardly 
more  natural  than  the  contortions  of  disease; 
but  I  don't  know  after  all  why  I  should  in 
this  connection  so  much  as  mention  them.  For 
the  few  persons,  at  any  rate,  abnormal  or  not, 
with  whom  my  anecdote  is  concerned,  literature 
was  a  game  of  skill,  and  skill  meant  courage, 
and  courage  meant  honour,  and  honour  meant 
passion,  meant  life.  The  stake  on  the  table  was 
of  a  different  substance,  and  our  roulette  was 
the  revolving  mind,  but  we  sat  round  the  green 
board  as  intently  as  the  grim  gamblers  at  Monte 
Carlo.  Gwendolen  Erme,  for  that  matter,  with 
her  white  face  and  her  fixed  eyes,  was  of  the 
very  type  of  the  lean  ladies  one  had  met  in  the 
temples  of  chance.  I  recognised  in  Corvick's  ab 
sence  that  she  made  this  analogy  vivid.  It  was 
extravagant,  I  admit,  the  way  she  lived  for  the 
art  of  the  pen.  Her  passion  visibly  preyed  upon 
her,  and  in  her  presence  I  felt  almost  tepid.  I 
got  hold  of  "Deep  Down"  again:  it  was  a  des 
ert  in  which  she  had  lost  herself,  but  in  which 
too  she  had  dug  a  wonderful  hole  in  the  sand 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  47 

—  a  cavity  out  of  which  Corvick  had  still  more 
remarkably  pulled  her. 

Early  in  March  I  had  a  telegram  from  her,  in 
consequence  of  which  I  repaired  immediately  to 
Chelsea,  where  the  first  thing  she  said  to  me 
was  :  "  He  has  got  it,  he  has  got  it !  " 

She  was  moved,  as  I  could  see,  to  such  depths 
that  she  must  mean  the  great  thing.  "  Vereker's 
idea?" 

"His  general  intention.  George  has  cabled 
from  Bombay." 

She  had  the  missive  open  there  ;  it  was  em 
phatic,  but  it  was  brief.  "Eureka.  Immense." 
That  was  all  —  he  had  saved  the  money  of  the 
signature.  I  shared  her  emotion,  but  I  was 
disappointed.  "  He  doesn't  say  what  it  is." 

"  How  could  he  —  in  a  telegram  ?  He'll  write 
it." 

"  But  how  does  he  know  ?  " 

"Know  it's  the  real  thing?  Oh,  I'm  sure 
when  you  see  it  you  do  know.  Vera  incessu 
patuit  dea!" 

"It's  you,  Miss  Erme,  who  are  a  dear  for 
bringing  me  such  news  !  "  —  I  went  all  lengths 
in  my  high  spirits.  "But  fancy  finding  our 
goddess  in  the  temple  of  Vishnu  !  How  strange 


48  EMBARRASSMENTS 

of  George  to  have  been  able  to  go  into  the  thing 
again  in  the  midst  of  such  different  and  such 
powerful  solicitations  !  " 

"  He  hasn't  gone  into  it,  I  know ;  it's  the 
thing  itself,  let  severely  alone  for  six  months, 
that  has  simply  sprung  out  at  him  like  a  tigress 
out  of  the  jungle.  He  didn't  take  a  book  with 
him  —  on  purpose ;  indeed  he  wouldn't  have 
needed  to  —  he  knows  every  page,  as  I  do,  by 
heart.  They  all  worked  in  him  together,  and 
some  day  somewhere,  when  he  wasn't  thinking, 
they  fell,  in  all  their  superb  intricacy,  into  the 
one  right  combination.  The  figure  in  the  car 
pet  came  out.  That's  the  way  he  knew  it  would 
come  and  the  real  reason — you  didn't  in  the 
least  understand,  but  I  suppose  I  may  tell  you 
now  —  why  he  went  and  why  I  consented  to  his 
going.  We  knew  the  change  would  do  it,  the 
difference  of  thought,  of  scene,  would  give  the 
needed  touch,  the  magic  shake.  We  had  per 
fectly,  we  had  admirably  calculated.  The  ele 
ments  were  all  in  his  mind,  and  in  the  secousse 
of  a  new  and  intense  experience  they  just  struck 
light."  She  positively  struck  light  herself  — 
she  was  literally,  facially  luminous.  I  stam 
mered  something  about  unconscious  cerebration, 


THE  FIGURE  IN   THE   CARPET  49 

and  she  continued  :  "  He'll  come  right  home  — 
this  will  bring  him." 

"  To  see  Vereker,  you  mean  ?  " 

"  To  see  Vereker  —  and  to  see  me.  Think 
what  he'll  have  to  tell  me  !  " 

I  hesitated.     "About  India?" 

"About  fiddlesticks!  About  Vereker — about 
the  figure  in  the  carpet." 

"But,  as  you  say,  we  shall  surely  have  that 
in  a  letter." 

She  thought  like  one  inspired,  and  I  remem 
bered  how  Corvick  had  told  me  long  before  that 
her  face  was  interesting.  "  Perhaps  it  won't  go 
in  a  letter  if  it's  'immense." 

"  Perhaps  not  if  it's  immense  bosh.  If  he  has 
got  something  that  won't  go  in  a  letter  he  hasn't 
got  the  thing.  Vereker's  own  statement  to  me 
was  exactly  that  the  '  figure '  would  go  in  a  letter." 

"  Well,  I  cabled  to  George  an  hour  ago  —  two 
words,"  said  Gwendolen. 

"Is  it  indiscreet  of  me  to  inquire  what  they 
were  ?  " 

She  hung  fire,  but  at  last  she  brought  them  out. 
"'Angel,  write.'" 

"  Good  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  I'll  make  it  sure  — 
I'll  send  him  the  same." 


VII 


MY  words  however  were  not  absolutely  the  same 
—  I  put  something  instead  of  "  angel "  ;  and  in 
the  sequel  my  epithet  seemed  the  more  apt,  for 
when  eventually  we  heard  from  Corvick  it  was 
merely,  it  was  thoroughly  to  be  tantalised.  He 
was  magnificent  in  his  triumph,  he  described  his 
discovery  as  stupendous  ;  but  his  ecstasy  only 
obscured  it  —  there  were  to  be  no  particulars  till 
he  should  have  submitted  his  conception  to  the 
supreme  authority.  He  had  thrown  up  his  com 
mission,  he  had  thrown  up  his  book,  he  had  thrown 
up  everything  but  the  instant  need  to  hurry  to 
Rapallo,  on  the  Genoese  shore,  where  Vereker  was 
making  a  stay.  I  wrote  him  a  letter  which  was 
to  await  him  at  Aden  —  I  besought  him  to  relieve 
my  suspense.  That  he  found  my  letter  was  indi 
cated  by  a  telegram  which,  reaching  me  after 
weary  days  and  without  my  having  received  an 
answer  to  my  laconic  dispatch  at  Bombay,  was 

50 


THE  FIGUBE  IN  THE  CARPET        51 

evidently  intended  as  a  reply  to  both  communica 
tions.  Those  few  words  were  in  familiar  French, 
the  French  of  the  day,  which  Corvick  often  made 
use  of  to  show  he  wasn't  a  prig.  It  had  for  some 
persons  the  opposite  effect,  but  his  message  may 
fairly  be  paraphrased.  "  Have  patience  ;  I  want 
to  see,  as  it  breaks  on  you,  the  face  you'll  make  !  " 
"  Tellement  envie  de  voir  ta  tete ! "  —  that  was 
what  I  had  to  sit  down  with.  I  can  certainly 
not  be  said  to  have  sat  down,  for  I  seem  to  re 
member  myself  at  this  time  as  rushing  con 
stantly  between  the  little  house  in  Chelsea  and 
my  own.  Our  impatience,  Gwendolen's  and 
mine,  was  equal,  but  I  kept  hoping  her  light 
would  be  greater.  We  all  spent  during  this 
episode,  for  people  of  our  means,  a  great  deal  of 
money  in  telegrams,  and  I  counted  on  the  receipt 
of  news  from  Rapallo  immediately  after  the  junc 
tion  of  the  discoverer  with  the  discovered.  The 
interval  seemed  an  age,  but  late  one  day  I  heard 
a  hansom  rattle  up  to  my  door  with  a  crash  en 
gendered  by  a  hint  of  liberality.  I  lived  with 
my  heart  in  my  mouth  and  I  bounded  to  the  win 
dow —  a  movement  which  gave  me  a  view  of  a 
young  lady  erect  on  the  footboard  of  the  vehicle 
and  eagerly  looking  up  at  my  house.  At  sight 


52  EMBAEEASSMENTS 

of  me  she  flourished  a  paper  with  a  movement 
that  brought  me  straight  down,  the  movement 
with  which,  in  melodramas,  handkerchiefs  and 
reprieves  are  flourished  at  the  foot  of  the 
scaffold. 

"Just  seen  Vereker  —  not  a  note  wrong. 
Pressed  me  to  bosom — keeps  me  a  month." 
So  much  I  read  on  her  paper  while  the  cabby 
dropped  a  grin  from  his  perch.  In  my  excite 
ment  I  paid  him  profusely  and  in  hers  she  suf 
fered  it ;  then  as  he  drove  away  we  started  to 
walk  about  and  talk.  We  had  talked,  heaven 
knows,  enough  before,  but  this  was  a  wondrous 
lift.  We  pictured  the  whole  scene  at  Rapallo, 
where  he  would  have  written,  mentioning  my 
name,  for  permission  to  call ;  that  is  I  pictured 
it,  having  more  material  than  my  companion, 
whom  I  felt  hang  on  my  lips  as  we  stopped  on 
purpose  before  shop-windows  we  didn't  look  into. 
About  one  thing  we  were  clear :  if  he  was  stay 
ing  on  for  fuller  communication  we  should  at 
least  have  a  letter  from  him  that  would  help  us 
through  the  dregs  of  delay.  We  understood  his 
staying  on,  and  yet  each  of  us  saw,  I  think,  that 
the  other  hated  it.  The  letter  we  were  clear 
about  arrived ;  it  was  for  Gwendolen,  and  I 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CAEPET  53 

called  upon  her  in  time  to  save  her  the  trouble 
of  bringing  it  to  me.  She  didn't  read  it  out,  as 
was  natural  enough ;  but  she  repeated  to  me 
what  it  chiefly  embodied.  This  consisted  of 
the  remarkable  statement  that  he  would  tell 
her  when  they  were  married  exactly  what  she 
wanted  to  know. 

"  Only  when  we're  married  —  not  before,"  she 
explained.  "It's  tantamount  to  saying  —  isn't 
it?  —  that  I  must  marry  him  straight  off !  "  She 
smiled  at  me  while  I  flushed  with  disappointment, 
a  vision  of  fresh  delay  that  made  me  at  first  un 
conscious  of  my  surprise.  It  seemed  more  than 
a  hint  that  on  me  as  well  he  would  impose  some 
tiresome  condition.  Suddenly,  while  she  reported 
several  more  things  from  his  letter,  I  remembered 
what  he  had  told  me  before  going  away.  He 
found  Mr.  Vereker  deliriously  interesting  and  his 
own  possession  of  the  secret  a  kind  of  intoxica 
tion.  The  buried  treasure  was  all  gold  and  gems. 
Now  that  it  was  there  it  seemed  to  grow  and 
grow  before  him ;  it  was  in  all  time,  in  all 
tongues,  one  of  the  most  wonderful  flowers  of 
art.  Nothing,  above  all,  when  once  one  was  face 
to  face  with  it,  had  been  more  consummately 
done.  When  once  it  came  out  it  came  out,  was 


54  EMBARRASSMENTS 

there  with  a  splendour  that  made  you  ashamed ; 
and  there  had  not  been,  save  in  the  bottomless 
vulgarity  of  the  age,  with  every  one  tasteless  and 
tainted,  every  sense  stopped,  the  smallest  reason 
why  it  should  have  been  overlooked.  It  was 
immense,  but  it  was  simple  —  it  was  simple,  but 
it  was  immense,  and  the  final  knowledge  of  it  was 
an  experience  quite  apart.  He  intimated  that 
the  charm  of  such  an  experience,  the  desire  to 
drain  it,  in  its  freshness,  to  the  last  drop,  was 
what  kept  him  there  close  to  the  source.  Gwen 
dolen,  frankly  radiant  as  she  tossed  me  these 
fragments,  showed  the  elation  of  a  prospect  more 
assured  than  my  own.  That  brought  me  back 
to  the  question  of  her  marriage,  prompted  me  to 
ask  her  if  what  she  meant  by  what  she  had  just 
surprised  me  with  was  that  she  was  under  an 
engagement. 

"Of  course  I  am!"  she  answered.  "Didn't 
you  know  it  ?  "  She  appeared  astonished  ;  but  I 
was  still  more  so,  for  Corvick  had  told  me  the 
exact  contrary.  I  didn't  mention  this,  however  ; 
I  only  reminded  her  that  I  had  not  been  to  that 
degree  in  her  confidence,  or  even  in  Corvick's, 
and  that  moreover  I  was  not  in  ignorance  of  her 
mother's  interdict.  At  bottom  I  was  troubled  by 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE   CAEPET  55 

the  disparity  of  the  two  assertions;  but  after  a 
moment  I  felt  that  Corvick's  was  the  one  I  least 
doubted.  This  simply  reduced  me  to  asking  my 
self  if  the  girl  had  on  the  spot  improvised  an 
engagement  —  vamped  up  an  old  one  or  dashed 
off  a  new  —  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  satisfaction 
she  desired.  I  reflected  that  she  had  resources 
of  which  I  was  destitute  ;  but  she  made  her  case 
slightly  more  intelligible  by  rejoining  presently: 
"What  the  state  of  things  has  been  is  that  we 
felt  of  course  bound  to  do  nothing  in  mamma's 
lifetime." 

"  But  now  you  think  you'll  just  dispense  with 
your  mother's  consent?" 

"  Ah,  it  may  not  come  to  that !  "  I  wondered 
what  it  might  come  to,  and  she  went  on  :  "  Poor 
dear,  she  may  swallow  the  dose.  In  fact,  you 
know,"  she  added  with  a  laugh,  ushe  really 
must!"  —  a  proposition  of  which,  on  behalf  of 
every  one  concerned,  I  fully  acknowledged  the 
force. 


VIII 

NOTHING  more  annoying  had  ever  happened  to 
me  than  to  become  aware  before  Corvick's  arrival 
in  England  that  I  should  not  be  there  to  put  him 
through.  I  found  myself  abruptly  called  to  Ger 
many  by  the  alarming  illness  of  my  younger 
brother,  who,  against  my  advice,  had  gone  to 
Munich  to  study,  at  the  feet  indeed  of  a  great 
master,  the  art  of  portraiture  in  oils.  The 
near  relative  who  made  him  an  allowance  had 
threatened  to  withdraw  it  if  he  should,  under 
specious  pretexts,  turn  for  superior  truth  to 
Paris  —  Paris  being  somehow,  for  a  Cheltenham 
aunt,  the  school  of  evil,  the  abyss.  I  deplored 
this  prejudice  at  the  time,  and  the  deep  injury 
of  it  was  now  visible  —  first  in  the  fact  that  it 
had  not  saved  the  poor  boy,  who  was  clever,  frail 
and  foolish,  from  congestion  of  the  lungs,  and 
second  in  the  greater  remoteness  from  London 
to  which  the  event  condemned  me.  I  am  afraid 

56 


THE  FIGUKE  IN  THE  CARPET  57 

that  what  was  uppermost  in  my  mind  during  sev 
eral  anxious  weeks  was  the  sense  that  if  we  had 
only  been  in  Paris  I  might  have  run  over  to  see 
Corvick.  This  was  actually  out  of  the  question 
from  every  point  of  view  :  my  brother,  whose  re 
covery  gave  us  both  plenty  to  do,  was  ill  for  three 
months,  during  which  I  never  left  him  and  at 
the  end  of  which  we  had  to  face  the  absolute 
prohibition  of  a  return  to  England.  The  con 
sideration  of  climate  imposed  itself,  and  he  was 
in  no  state  to  meet  it  alone.  I  took  him  to 
Meran  and  there  spent  the  summer  with  him, 
trying  to  show  him  by  example  how  to  get  back 
to  work  and  nursing  a  rage  of  another  sort  that  I 
tried  not  to  show  him. 

The  whole  business  proved  the  first  of  a  series 
of  phenomena  so  strangely  combined  that,  taken 
together  (which  was  how  I  had  to  take  them) 
they  form  as  good  an  illustration  as  I  can  recall 
of  the  manner  in  which,  for  the  good  of  his  soul 
doubtless,  fate  sometimes  deals  with  a  man's 
avidity.  These  incidents  certainly  had  larger 
bearings  than  the  comparatively  meagre  conse 
quence  we  are  here  concerned  with  —  though  I 
feel  that  consequence  also  to  be  a  thing  to  speak 
of  with  some  respect.  It's  mainly  in  such  a  light, 


58  EMBARRASSMENTS 

I  confess,  at  any  rate,  that  at  this  hour  the  ugly 
fruit  of  my  exile  is  present  to  me.  Even  at  first 
indeed  the  spirit  in  which  my  avidity,  as  I  have 
called  it,  made  me  regard  this  term  owed  no 
element  of  ease  to  the  fact  that  before  coming 
back  from  Rapallo  George  Corvick  addressed  me 
in  a  way  I  didn't  like.  His  letter  had  none  of 
the  sedative  action  that  I  must  to-day  profess 
myself  sure  he  had  wished  to  give  it,  and  the 
march  of  occurrences  was  not  so  ordered  as  to 
make  up  for  what  it  lacked.  He  had  begun  on 
the  spot,  for  one  of  the  quarterlies,  a  great  last 
word  on  Vereker's  writings,  and  this  exhaustive 
study,  the  only  one  that  would  have  counted, 
have  existed,  was  to  turn  on  the  new  light,  to 
utter  —  oh,  so  quietly  !  —  the  unimagined  truth. 
It  was  in  other  words  to  trace  the  figure  in  the 
carpet  through  every  convolution,  to  reproduce  it 
in  every  tint.  The  result,  said  Corvick,  was  to 
be  the  greatest  literary  portrait  ever  painted,  and 
what  he  asked  of  me  was  just  to  be  so  good  as  not 
to  trouble  him  with  questions  till  he  should  hang 
up  his  masterpiece  before  me.  He  did  me  the 
honour  to  declare  that,  putting  aside  the  great 
sitter  himself,  all  aloft  in  his  indifference,  I  was 
individually  the  connoisseur  he  was  most  work- 


THE   FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  59 

ing  for.  I  was  therefore  to  be  a  good  boy  and 
not  try  to  peep  under  the  curtain  before  the  show 
was  ready  :  I  should  enjoy  it  all  the  more  if  I  sat 
very  still. 

I  did  my  best  to  sit  very  still,  but  I  couldn't 
help  giving  a  jump  on  seeing  in  The  Times  after 
I  had  been  a  week  or  two  in  Munich  and  before, 
as  I  knew,  Corvick  had  reached  London,  the 
announcement  of  the  sudden  death  of  poor  Mrs. 
Erme.  I  instantly  wrote  to  Gwendolen  for  par 
ticulars,  and  she  replied  that  her  mother  had  suc 
cumbed  to  long-threatened  failure  of  the  heart. 
She  didn't  say,  but  I  took  the  liberty  of  reading 
into  her  words,  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  her 
marriage  and  also  of  her  eagerness,  which  was 
quite  a  match  for  mine,  this  was  a  solution  more 
prompt  than  could  have  been  expected  and  more 
radical  than  waiting  for  the  old  lady  to  swallow 
the  dose.  I  candidly  admit  indeed  that  at  the 
time — for  I  heard  from  her  repeatedly  —  I  read 
some  singular  things  into  Gwendolen's  words 
and  some  still  more  extraordinary  ones  into  her 
silences.  Pen  in  hand,  this  way,  I  live  the  time 
over,  and  it  brings  back  the  oddest  sense  of  my 
having  been  for  months  and  in  spite  of  myself  a 
kind  of  coerced  spectator.  All  my  life  had  taken 


60  EMBARRASSMENTS 

refuge  in  my  eyes,  which  the  procession  of  events 
appeared  to  have  committed  itself  to  keep  astare. 
There  were  days  when  I  thought  of  writing  to 
Hugh  Vereker  and  simply  throwing  myself  on  his 
charity.  But  I  felt  more  deeply  that  I  hadn't 
fallen  quite  so  low,  besides  which,  quite  prop 
erly,  he  would  send  me  about  my  business.  Mrs. 
Ernie's  death  brought  Corvick  straight  home,  and 
within  the  month  he  was  united  "  very  quietly  " 
—  as  quietly  I  suppose  as  he  meant  in  his  article 
to  bring  out  his  trouvaille  —  to  the  young  lady  he 
had  loved  and  quitted.  I  use  this  last  term,  I 
may  parenthetically  say,  because  I  subsequently 
grew  sure  that  at  the  time  he  went  to  India,  at 
the  time  of  his  great  news  from  Bombay,  there 
was  no  engagement  whatever.  There  was  none 
at  the  moment  she  affirmed  the  opposite.  On 
the  other  hand  he  certainly  became  engaged  the 
day  he  returned.  The  happy  pair  went  down  to 
Torquay  for  their  honeymoon,  and  there,  in  a 
reckless  hour,  it  occurred  to  poor  Corvick  to  take 
his  young  bride  a  drive.  He  had  no  command 
of  that  business :  this  had  been  brought  home 
to  me  of  old  in  a  little  tour  we  had  once  made 
together  in  a  dogcart.  In  a  dogcart  he  perched 
his  companion  for  a  rattle  over  Devonshire  hills, 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  61 

on  one  of  the  likeliest  of  which  he  brought  his 
horse,  who,  it  was  true,  had  bolted,  down  with 
such  violence  that  the  occupants  of  the  cart  were 
hurled  forward  and  that  he  fell  horribly  on  his 
head.  He  was  killed  on  the  spot ;  Gwendolen 
escaped  unhurt. 

I  pass  rapidly  over  the  question  of  this  unmiti 
gated  tragedy,  of  what  the  loss  of  my  best  friend 
meant  for  me,  and  I  complete  my  little  history  of 
my  patience  and  my  pain  by  the  frank  statement 
of  my  having,  in  a  postscript  to  my  very  first 
letter  to  her  after  the  receipt  of  the  hideous 
news,  asked  Mrs.  Corvick  whether  her  husband 
had  not  at  least  finished  the  great  article  on 
Vereker.  Her  answer  was  as  prompt  as  my  in 
quiry  :  the  article,  which  had  been  barely  begun, 
was  a  mere  heartbreaking  scrap.  She  explained 
that  Corvick  had  just  settled  down  to  it  when 
he  was  interrupted  by  her  mother's  death ;  then, 
on  his  return,  he  had  been  kept  from  work  by 
the  engrossments  into  which  that  calamity 
plunged  them.  The  opening  pages  were  all 
that  existed ;  they  were  striking,  they  were 
promising,  but  they  didn't  unveil  the  idol.  That 
great  intellectual  feat  was  obviously  to  have 
formed  his  climax.  She  said  nothing  more,  noth- 


62  EMBARRASSMENTS 

ing  to  enlighten  me  as  to  the  state  of  her  own 
knowledge  —  the  knowledge  for  the  acquisition 
of  which  I  had  conceived  her  doing  prodigious 
things.  This  was  above  all  what  I  wanted  to 
know :  had  she  seen  the  idol  unveiled  ?  Had 
there  been  a  private  ceremony  for  a  palpitating 
audience  of  one?  For  what  else  but  that  cere 
mony  had  the  previous  ceremony  been  enacted? 
I  didn't  like  as  yet  to  press  her,  though  when  I 
thought  of  what  had  passed  between  us  on  the 
subject  in  Corvick's  absence  her  reticence  sur 
prised  me.*  It  was  therefore  not  till  much  later, 
from  Mera-n,  that  I  risked  another  appeal,  risked 
it  in  some  trepidation,  for  she  continued  to  tell 
me  nothing.  "Did  you  hear  in  those  few  days 
of  your  blighted  bliss,"  I  wrote,  "what  we  de 
sired  so  to  hear?"  I  said  "we"  as  a  little 
hint ;  and  she  showed  me  she  could  take  a  little 
hint.  "  I  heard  everything,"  she  replied,  "  and 
I  mean  to  keep  it  to  myself  !  " 


IX 


IT  was  impossible  not  to  be  moved  with  the 
strongest  sympathy  for  her,  and  on  my  return  to 
England  I  showed  her  every  kindness  in  my 
power.  Her  mother's  death  had  made  her  means 
sufficient,  and  she  had  gone  to  live  in  a  more  con 
venient  quarter.  But  her  loss  had  been  great  and 
her  visitation  cruel ;  it  never  would  have  occurred 
to  me  moreover  to  suppose  she  could  come  to 
regard  the  enjoyment  of  a  technical  tip,  of  a  piece 
of  literary  experience,  as  a  counterpoise  to  her 
grief.  Strange  to  say,  none  the  less,  I  couldn't 
help  fancying  after  I  had  seen  her  a  few  times 
that  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  some  such  oddity.  I 
hasten  to  add  that  there  had  been  other  things  I 
couldn't  help  fancying  ;  and  as  I  never  felt  I  was 
really  clear  about  these,  so,  as  to  the  point  I  here 
touch  on,  I  give  her  memory  the  benefit  of  every 
doubt.  Stricken  and  solitary,  highly  accomplished 
and  now,  in  her  deep  mourning,  her  maturer  grace, 

63 


64  EMBARRASSMENTS 

and  her  uncomplaining  sorrow  incontestably  hand 
some,  she  presented  herself  as  leading  a  life  of  sin 
gular  dignity  and  beauty.  I  had  at  first  found  a 
way  to  believe  that  I  should  soon  get  the  better  of 
the  reserve  formulated  the  week  after  the  catastro 
phe  in  her  reply  to  an  appeal  as  to  which  I  was  not 
unconscious  that  it  might  strike  her  as  mistimed. 
Certainly  that  reserve  was  something  of  a  shock  to 
me  —  certainly  it  puzzled  me  the  more  I  thought 
of  it,  though  I  tried  to  explain  it,  with  moments 
of  success,  by  the  supposition  of  exalted  senti 
ments,  of  superstitious  scruples,  of  a  refinement  of 
loyalty.  Certainly  it  added  at  the  same  time 
hugely  to  the  price  of  Vereker's  secret,  precious 
as  that  mystery  already  appeared.  I  may  as  well 
confess  abjectly  that  Mrs.  Corvick's  unexpected 
attitude  was  the  final  tap  on  the  nail  that  was  to 
fix,  as  they  say,  my  luckless  idea,  convert  it  into 
the  obsession  of  which  I  am  for  ever  conscious. 
But  this  only  helped  me  the  more  to  be  artful, 
to  be  adroit,  to  allow  time  to  elapse  before  renew 
ing  my  suit.  There  were  plenty  of  speculations 
for  the  interval,  and  one  of  them  was  deeply 
absorbing.  Corvick  had  kept  his  information 
from  his  young  friend  till  after  the  removal  of  the 
last  barriers  to  their  intimacy  ;  then  he  had  let 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET        65 

the  cat  out  of  the  bag.  Was  it  Gwendolen's  idea, 
taking  a  hint  from  him,  to  liberate  this  animal  only 
on  the  basis  of  the  renewal  of  such  a  relation? 
Was  the  figure  in  the  carpet  traceable  or  describ- 
able  only  for  husbands  and  wives — for  lovers 
supremely  united  ?  It  came  back  to  me  in  a  mys 
tifying  manner  that  in  Kensington-square,  when 
I  told  him  that  Corvick  would  have  told  the  girl 
he  loved,  some  word  had  dropped  from  Vereker 
that  gave  colour  to  this  possibility.  There  might 
be  little  in  it,  but  there  was  enough  to  make  me 
wonder  if  I  should  have  to  marry  Mrs.  Corvick  to 
get  what  I  wanted.  Was  I  prepared  to  offer  her 
this  price  for  the  blessing  of  her  knowledge  ? 
Ah  !  that  way  madness  lay  —  so  I  said  to  myself 
at  least  in  bewildered  hours.  I  could  see  mean 
while  the  torch  she  refused  to  pass  on  flame  away 
in  her  chamber  of  memory  —  pour  through  her 
eyes  a  light  that  made  a  glow  in  her  lonely  house. 
At  the  end  of  six  months  I  was  fully  sure  of  what 
this  warm  presence  made  up  to  her  for.  We  had 
talked  again  and  again  of  the  man  who  had 
brought  us  together,  of  his  talent,  his  character, 
his  personal  charm,  his  certain  career,  his  dreadful 
doom,  and  even  of  his  clear  purpose  in  that  great 
study  which  was  to  have  been  a  supreme  literary 


66  EMBARRASSMENTS 

portrait,  a  kind  of  critical  Vandyke  or  Velasquez. 
She  had  conveyed  to  me  in  abundance  that  she 
was  tongue-tied  by  her  perversity,  by  her  piety, 
that  she  would  never  break  the  silence  it  had  not 
been  given  to  the  "  right  person,"  as  she  said,  to 
break.  The  hour  however  finally  arrived.  One 
evening  when  I  had  been  sitting  with  her  longer 
than  usual  I  laid  my  hand  firmly  on  her  arm. 

"Now,  at  last,  what  is  it?" 

She  had  been  expecting  me  ;  she  was  ready. 
She  gave  a  long,  slow,  soundless  headshake,  mer 
ciful  only  in  being  inarticulate.  This  mercy 
didn't  prevent  its  hurling  at  me  the  largest, 
finest,  coldest  "  Never ! "  I  had  yet,  in  the  course 
of  a  life  that  had  known  denials,  had  to  take  full 
in  the  face.  I  took  it  and  was  aware  that  with 
the  hard  blow  the  tears  had  come  into  my  eyes. 
So  for  a  while  we  sat  and  looked  at  each  other  ; 
after  which  I  slowly  rose.  I  was  wondering  if 
some  day  she  would  accept  me  ;  but  this  was  not 
what  I  brought  out.  I  said  as  I  smoothed  down 
my  hat :  "I  know  what  to  think  then ;  it's 
nothing  !  " 

A  remote,  disdainful  pity  for  me  shone  out  of 
her  dim  smile  ;  then  she  exclaimed  in  a  voice 
that  I  hear  at  this  moment  :  "  It's  my  life  !  "  As 


THE   FIGURE   IN   THE   CAKPET  67 

I  stood  at  the  door  she  added  :  "  You've  insulted 
him  !  " 

"Do  you  mean  Vereker?" 

"I  mean  — the  Dead!" 

I  recognised  when  I  reached  the  street  the 
justice  of  her  charge.  Yes,  it  was  her  life  —  I 
recognised  that  too ;  but  her  life  none  the  less 
made  room  with  the  lapse  of  time  for  another 
interest.  A  year  and  a  half  after  Corvick's  death 
she  published  in  a  single  volume  her  second 
novel,  "  Overmastered,"  which  I  pounced  on  in 
the  hope  of  finding  in  it  some  tell-tale  echo  or 
some  peeping  face.  All  I  found  was  a  much 
better  book  than  her  younger  performance,  show 
ing  I  thought  the  better  company  she  had  kept. 
As  a  tissue  tolerably  intricate  it  was  a  carpet 
with  a  figure  of  its  own ;  but  the  figure  was  not 
the  figure  I  was  looking  for.  On  sending  a 
review  of  it  to  The  Middle  I  was  surprised  to 
learn  from  the  office  that  a  notice  was  already  in 
type.  When  the  paper  came  out  I  had  no  hesita 
tion  in  attributing  this  article,  which  I  thought 
rather  vulgarly  overdone,  to  Drayton  Deane,  who 
in  the  old  days  had  been  something  of  a  friend  of 
Corvick's,  yet  had  only  within  a  few  weeks  made 
the  acquaintance  of  his  widow.  I  had  had  an 


68  EMBARRASSMENTS 

early  copy  of  the  book,  but  Deane  had  evidently 
had  an  earlier.  He  lacked  all  the  same  the  light 
hand  with  which  Corvick  had  gilded  the  ginger 
bread —  he  laid  on  the  tinsel  in  splotches. 


Six  months  later  appeared  "  The  Right  of 
Way,"  the  last  chance,  though  we  didn't  know 
it,  that  we  were  to  have  to  redeem  ourselves. 
Written  wholly  during  Vereker's  absence,  the 
book  had  been  heralded,  in  a  hundred  para 
graphs,  by  the  usual  ineptitudes.  I  carried  it, 
as  early  a  copy  as  any,  I  this  time  flattered  my 
self,  straightway  to  Mrs.  Corvick.  This  was  the 
only  use  I  had  for  it ;  I  left  the  inevitable  trib 
ute  of  The  Middle  to  some  more  ingenious  mind 
and  some  less  irritated  temper.  "  But  I  already 
have  it,"  Gwendolen  said.  "  Drayton  Deane  was 
so  good  as  to  bring  it  to  me  yesterday,  and  I've 
just  finished  it." 

"  Yesterday  ?     How  did  he  get  it  so  soon  ?  " 

"He  gets  everything  soon.  He's  to  review  it 
in  The  Middle." 

"  He  —  Drayton  Deane  —  review  Vereker  ?  "  I 
couldn't  believe  my  ears. 


70  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"  Why  not  ?  One  fine  ignorance  is  as  good 
as  another." 

I  winced,  but  I  presently  said  :  "  You  ought 
to  review  him  yourself  !  " 

"  I  don't  '  review,'  "  she  laughed.  "  I'm  re 
viewed  !  " 

Just  then  the  door  was  thrown  open.  "Ah 
yes,  here's  your  reviewer  !  "  Drayton  Deane  was 
there  with  his  long  legs  and  his  tall  forehead  : 
he  had  come  to  see  what  she  thought  of  "The 
Right  of  Way,"  and  to  bring  news  which  was 
singularly  relevant.  The  evening  papers  were 
just  out  with  a  telegram  on  the  author  of  that 
work,  who,  in  Rome,  had  been  ill  for  some  days 
with  an  attack  of  malarial  fever.  It  had  at  first 
not  been  thought  grave,  but  had  taken  in  con 
sequence  of  complications  a  turn  that  might 
give  rise  to  anxiety.  Anxiety  had  indeed  at 
the  latest  hour  begun  to  be  felt. 

1  was  struck  in  the  presence  of  these  tidings 
with  the  fundamental  detachment  that  Mrs.  Cor- 
vick's  public  regret  quite  failed  to  conceal :  it  gave 
me  the  measure  of  her  consummate  independence. 
That  independence  rested  on  her  knowledge,  the 
knowledge  which  nothing  now  could  destroy  and 
which  nothing  could  make  different.  The  fig- 


THE  FIGURE  IN   THE   CARPET  71 

ure  in  the  carpet  might  take  on  another  twist  or 
two,  but  the  sentence  had  virtually  been  writ 
ten.  The  writer  might  go  down  to  his  grave  : 
she  was  the  person  in  the  world  to  whom  —  as 
if  she  had  been  his  favoured  heir  —  his  continued 
existence  was  least  of  a  need.  This  reminded 
me  how  I  had  observed  at  a  particular  moment 
—  after  Corvick's  death  —  the  drop  of  her  de 
sire  to  see  him  face  to  face.  She  had  got  what 
she  wanted  without  that.  I  had  been  sure  that 
if  she  hadn't  got  it  she  wouldn't  have  been 
restrained  from  the  endeavour  to  sound  him 
personally  by  those  superior  reflections,  more 
conceivable  on  a  man's  part  than  on  a  woman's, 
which  in  my  case  had  served  as  a  deterrent.  It 
wasn't  however,  I  hasten  to  add,  that  my  case,  in 
spite  of  this  invidious  comparison,  wasn't  ambigu 
ous  enough.  At  the  thought  that  Vereker  was 
perhaps  at  that  moment  dying  there  rolled  over 
me  a  wave  of  anguish  —  a  poignant  sense  of  how 
inconsistently  I  still  depended  on  him.  A  deli 
cacy  that  it  was  my  one  compensation  to  suffer 
to  rule  me  had  left  the  Alps  and  the  Apennines 
between  us,  but  the  vision  of  the  waning  oppor 
tunity  made  me  feel  as  if  I  might  in  my  despair 
at  last  have  gone  to  him.  Of  course  I  would 


72  EMBARRASSMENTS 

really  have  done  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  re 
mained  five  minutes,  while  my  companions  talked 
of  the  new  book,  and  when  Drayton  Deane  ap 
pealed  to  me  for  my  opinion  of  it  I  replied, 
getting  up,  that  I  detested  Hugh  Vereker  — 
simply  couldn't  read  him.  I  went  away  with 
the  moral  certainty  that  as  the  door  closed  be 
hind  me  Deane  would  remark  that  I  was  awfully 
superficial.  His  hostess  wouldn't  contradict 
him. 

I  continue  to  trace  with  a  briefer  touch  our 
intensely  odd  concatenation.  Three  weeks  after 
this  came  Vereker's  death,  and  before  the  year 
was  out  the  death  of  his  wife.  That  poor  lady 
I  had  never  seen,  but  I  had  had  a  futile  theory 
that,  should  she  survive  him  long  enough  to  be 
decorously  accessible,  I  might  approach  her  with 
the  feeble  flicker  of  my  petition.  Did  she  know 
and  if  she  knew  would  she  speak  ?  It  was  much 
to  be  presumed  that  for  more  reasons  than  one 
she  would  have  nothing  to  say  ;  but  when  she 
passed  out  of  all  reach  I  felt  that  renouncement 
was  indeed  my  appointed  lot.  I  was  shut  up  in 
my  obsession  for  ever  —  my  gaolers  had  gone  off 
with  the  key.  I  find  myself  quite  as  vague  as 
a  captive  in  a  dungeon  about  the  time  that 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CAKPET  73 

further  elapsed  before  Mrs.  Corvick  became  the 
wife  of  Drayton  Deane.  I  had  foreseen,  through 
my  bars,  this  end  of  the  business,  though  there 
was  no  indecent  haste  and  our  friendship  had 
rather  fallen  off.  They  were  both  so  "awfully 
intellectual "  that  it  struck  people  as  a  suitable 
match,  but  I  knew  better  than  any  one  the  wealth 
of  understanding  the  bride  would  contribute  to 
the  partnership.  Never,  for  a  marriage  in  liter 
ary  circles  —  so  the  newspapers  described  the  alli 
ance  —  had  a  bride  been  so  handsomely  dowered. 
I  began  with  due  promptness  to  look  for  the  fruit 
of  their  union  —  that  fruit,  I  mean,  of  which  the 
premonitory  symptoms  would  be  peculiarly  vis 
ible  in  the  husband.  Taking  for  granted  the 
splendour  of  the  lady's  nuptial  gift,  I  expected 
to  see  him  make  a  show  commensurate  with  his 
increase  of  means.  I  knew  what  his  means  had 
been  —  his  article  on  uThe  Right  of  Way"  had 
distinctly  given  one  the  figure.  As  he  was  now 
exactly  in  the  position  in  which  still  more  exactly 
I  was  not  I  watched  from  month  to  month,  in  the 
likely  periodicals,  for  the  heavy  message  poor 
Corvick  had  been  unable  to  deliver  and  the  re 
sponsibility  of  which  would  have  fallen  on  his 
successor.  The  widow  and  wife  would  have 


74  EMBARRASSMENTS 

broken  by  the  rekindled  hearth  the  silence  that 
only  a  widow  and  wife  might  break,  and  Deane 
would  be  as  aflame  with  the  knowledge  as  Cor- 
vick  in  his  own  hour,  as  Gwendolen  in  hers  had 
been.  Well,  he  was  aflame  doubtless,  but  the 
fire  was  apparently  not  to  become  a  public  blaze. 
I  scanned  the  periodicals  in  vain:  Draytoii  Deane 
filled  them  with  exuberant  pages,  but  he  with 
held  the  page  I  most  feverishly  sought.  He 
wrote  on  a  thousand  subjects,  but  never  on  the 
subject  of  Vereker.  His  special  line  was  to  tell 
truths  that  other  people  either  "funked,"  as  he 
said,  or  overlooked,  but  he  never  told  the  only 
truth  that  seemed  to  me  in  these  days  to  signify. 
I  met  the  couple  in  those  literary  circles  referred 
to  in  the  papers:  I  have  sufficiently  intimated 
that  it  was  only  in  such  circles  we  were  all  con 
structed  to  revolve.  Gwendolen  was  more  than 
ever  committed  to  them  by  the  publication  of  her 
third  novel,  and  I  myself  definitely  classed  by 
holding  the  opinion  that  this  work  was  inferior 
to  its  immediate  predecessor.  Was  it  worse  be 
cause  she  had  been  keeping  worse  company?  If 
her  secret  was,  as  she  had  told  me,  her  life  —  a 
fact  discernible  in  her  increasing  bloom,  an  air 
of  conscious  privilege  that,  cleverly  corrected  by 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  75 

pretty  charities,  gave  distinction  to  her  appear 
ance —  it  had  yet  not  a  direct  influence  on  her 
work.  That  only  made  —  everything  only  made 
—  one  yearn  the  more  for  it,  rounded  it  off  with 
a  mystery  finer  and  subtler. 


XI 


IT  was  therefore  from  her  husband  I  could 
never  remove  my  eyes :  I  hovered  about  him  in  a 
manner  that  might  have  made  him  uneasy.  I 
went  even  so  far  as  to  engage  him  in  conversation. 
Didn't  he  know,  hadn't  he  come  into  it  as  a 
matter  of  course  ?  —  that  question  hummed  in  my 
brain.  Of  course  he  knew ;  otherwise  he  wouldn't 
return  my  stare  so  queerly.  His  wife  had  told 
him  what  I  wanted,  and  he  was  amiably  amused 
at  my  impotence.  He  didn't  laugh  —  he  was  not 
a  laugher:  his  system  was  to  present  to  my  irri 
tation,  so  that  I  should  crudely  expose  myself,  a 
conversational  blank  as  vast  as  his  big  bare  brow. 
It  always  happened  that  I  turned  away  with  a 
settled  conviction  from  these  unpeopled  expanses, 
which  seemed  to  complete  each  other  geographi 
cally  and  to  symbolise  together  Dray  ton  Deane's 
want  of  voice,  want  of  form.  He  simply  hadn't 
the  art  to  use  what  he  knew;  he  literally  was 

70 


THE   FIGURE   IN   THE   CARPET  77 

incompetent  to  take  up  the  duty  where  Corvick 
had  left  it.  I  went  still  further  —  it  was  the  only 
glimpse  of  happiness  I  had.  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  the  duty  didn't  appeal  to  him.  He 
wasn't  interested,  he  didn't  care.  Yes,  it  quite 
comforted  me  to  believe  him  too  stupid  to  have 
joy  of  the  thing  I  lacked,  He  was  as  stupid 
after  as  before,  and  that  deepened  for  me  the 
golden  glory  in  which  the  mystery  was  wrapped. 
I  had  of  course  however  to  recollect  that  his  wife 
might  have  imposed  her  conditions  and  exactions. 
I  had  above  all  to  recollect  that  with  Vereker's 
death  the  major  incentive  dropped.  He  was  still 
there  to  be  honoured  by  what  might  be  done  —  he 
was  no  longer  there  to  give  it  his  sanction. 
Who,  alas,  but  he  had  the  authority  ? 

Two  children  were  born  to  the  pair,  but  the 
second  cost  the  mother  her  life.  After  this 
calamity  I  seemed  to  see  another  ghost  of  a 
chance.  I  jumped  at  it  in  thought,  but  I  waited 
a  certain  time  for  manners,  and  at  last  my  oppor 
tunity  arrived  in  a  remunerative  way.  His  wife 
had  been  dead  a  year  when  I  met  Drayton  Deane 
in  the  smoking-room  of  a  small  club  of  which  we 
both  were  members,  but  where  for  months  —  per 
haps  because  I  rarely  entered  it  —  I  had  not  seen 


78  EMBARRASSMENTS 

him.  The  room  was  empty  and  the  occasion 
propitious.  I  deliberately  offered  him,  to  have 
done  with  the  matter  for  ever,  that  advantage  for 
which  I  felt  he  had  long  been  looking. 

"As  an  older  acquaintance  of  your  late  wife's 
than  even  you  were,"  I  began,  "you  must  let  me 
say  to  you  something  I  have  on  my  mind.  I  shall 
be  glad  to  make  any  terms  with  you  that  you  see 
fit  to  name  for  the  information  she  had  from 
George  Corvick  —  the  information,  you  know; 
that  he,  poor  fellow,  in  one  of  the  happiest  hours 
of  his  life,  had  straight  from  Hugh  Vereker." 

He  looked  at  me  like  a  dim  phrenological  bust. 
"  The  information ?  " 

"Vereker's  secret,  my  dear  man  —  the  general 
intention  of  his  books :  the  string  the  pearls  were 
strung  on,  the  buried  treasure,  the  figure  in  the 
carpet." 

He  began  to  flush  —  the  numbers  on  his  bumps 
to  come  out.  "Vereker's  books  had  a  general 
intention?" 

I  stared  in  my  turn.  "You  don't  mean  to  say 
you  don't  know  it  ?  "  I  thought  for  a  moment  he 
was  playing  with  me.  "Mrs.  Deane  knew  it; 
she  had  it,  as  I  say,  straight  from  Corvick,  who 
had,  after  infinite  search  and  to  Vereker's  own 


THE   FIGURE  IN  THE   CARPET  79 

delight,  found  the  very  mouth  of  the  cave. 
Where  is  the  mouth?  He  told  after  their  mar 
riage  —  and  told  alone  —  the  person  who,  when 
the  circumstances  were  reproduced,  must  have 
told  you.  Have  I  been  wrong  in  taking  for 
granted  that  she  admitted  you,  as  one  of  the 
highest  privileges  of  the  relation  in  which  you 
stood  to  her,  to  the  knowledge  of  which  she  was 
after  Corvick's  death  the  sole  depositary?  All  I 
know  is  that  that  knowledge  is  infinitely  precious, 
and  what  I  want  you  to  understand  is  that  if  you 
will  in  your  turn  admit  me  to  it  you  will  do  me 
a  kindness  for  which  I  shall  be  everlastingly 
grateful." 

He  had  turned  at  last  very  red;  I  daresay  he 
had  begun  by  thinking  I  had  lost  my  wits. 
Little  by  little  he  followed  me ;  on  my  own  side 
I  stared  with  a  livelier  surprise.  "I  don't  know 
what  you're  talking  about,"  he  said. 

He  wasn't  acting — -it  was  the  absurd  truth. 
" She  didn't  tell  you-  -" 

"Nothing  about  Hugh  Vereker." 

I  was  stupefied;  the  room  went  round.  It  had 
been  too  good  even  for  that !  "  Upon  your  honour  ?  " 

"  Upon  my  honour.  What  the  devil's  the  matter 
with  you?"  he  demanded. 


80  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"I'm  astounded  —  I'm  disappointed.  I  wanted 
to  get  it  out  of  you." 

"It  isn't  in  me!"  he  awkwardly  laughed. 
"  And  even  if  it  were " 

"If  it  were  you'd  let  me  have  it  —  oh  yes,  in 
common  humanity.  But  I  believe  you.  I  see  — 
I  see ! "  I  went  on,  conscious,  with  the  full  turn 
of  the  wheel,  of  my  great  delusion,  my  false  view 
of  the  poor  man's  attitude.  What  I  saw,  though 
I  couldn't  say  it,  was  that  his  wife  hadn't  thought 
him  worth  enlightening.  This  struck  me  as 
strange  for  a  woman  who  had  thought  him  worth 
marrying.  At  last  I  explained  it  by  the  reflec 
tion  that  she  couldn't  possibly  have  married  him 
for  his  understanding.  She  had  married  him  for 
something  else.  He  was  to  some  extent  enlight 
ened  now,  but  he  was  even  more  astonished,  more 
disconcerted:  he  took  a  moment  to  compare  my 
story  with  his  quickened  memories.  The  result 
of  his  meditation  was  his  presently  saying  with  a 
good  deal  of  rather  feeble  form : 

"This  is  the  first  I  hear  of  what  you  allude 
to.  I  think  you  must  be  mistaken  as  to  Mrs. 
Dray  ton  Deane's  having  had  any  unmentioned, 
and  still  less  any  unmentionable,  knowledge 
about  Hugh  Vereker.  She  would  certainly  have 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET  81 

wished  it  —  if  it  bore  on  his  literary  character  — 
to  be  used." 

"  It  was  used.  She  used  it  herself.  She  told 
me  with  her  own  lips  that  she  'lived'  on  it." 

I  had  no  sooner  spoken  than  I  repented  of  my 
words;  he  grew  so  pale  that  I  felt  as  if  I  had 

struck  him.     "Ah,  '  lived  ' !  "  he  murmured, 

turning  short  away  from  me. 

My  compunction  was  real ;  I  laid  my  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  "I  beg  you  to  forgive  me  —  I've 
made  a  mistake.  You  don't  know  what  I  thought 
you  knew.  You  could,  if  I  had  been  right,  have 
rendered  me  a  service ;  and  I  had  my  reasons  for 
assuming  that  you  would  be  in  a  position  to 
meet  me." 

"  Your  reasons  ?  "  he  asked.  "  What  were  your 
reasons  ?  " 

I  looked  at  him  well ;  I  hesitated ;  I  considered. 
"Come  and  sit  down  with  me  here,  and  I'll  tell 
you."  I  drew  him  to  a  sofa,  I  lighted  another 
cigarette  and,  beginning  with  the  anecdote  of 
Vereker's  one  descent  from  the  clouds,  I  gave 
him  an  account  of  the  extraordinary  chain  of 
accidents  that  had  in  spite  of  it  kept  me  till  that 
hour  in  the  dark.  I  told  him  in  a  word  just  what 
I've  written  out  here.  He  listened  with  deepen- 


82  EMBARRASSMENTS 

ing  attention,  and  I  became  aware,  to  my  sur 
prise,  by  his  ejaculations,  by  his  questions,  that 
he  would  have  been  after  all  not  unworthy  to 
have  been  trusted  by  his  wife.  So  abrupt  an 
experience  of  her  want  of  trust  had  an  agitating 
effect  on  him,  but  I  saw  that  immediate  shock 
throb  away  little  by  little  and  then  gather  again 
into  waves  of  wonder  and  curiosity  —  waves  that 
promised,  I  could  perfectly  judge,  to  break  in  the 
end  with  the  fury  of  my  own  highest  tides.  I 
may  say  that  to-day  as  victims  of  unappeased 
desire  there  isn't  a  pin  to  choose  between  us. 
The  poor  man's  state  is  almost  my  consolation; 
there  are  indeed  moments  when  I  feel  it  to  be 
almost  my  revenge. 


GLASSES 


YES  indeed,  I  say  to  myself,  pen  in  hand,  I 
can  keep  hold  of  the  thread  and  let  it  lead  me 
back  to  the  first  impression.  The  little  story  is 
all  there,  I  can  touch  it  from  point  to  point;  for 
the  thread,  as  I  call  it,  is  a  row  of  coloured  beads 
on  a  string.  None  of  the  beads  are  missing  —  at 
least  I  think  they're  not:  that's  exactly  what  I 
shall  amuse  myself  with  finding  out. 

I  had  been  all  summer  working  hard  in  town 
and  then  had  gone  down  to  Folkestone  for  a  blow. 
Art  was  long,  I  felt,  and  my  holiday  short ;  my 
mother  was  settled  at  Folkestone,  and  I  paid  her 
a  visit  when  I  could.  I  remember  how  on  this 
occasion,  after  weeks,  in  my  stuffy  studio,  with 
my  nose  on  my  palette,  I  sniffed  up  the  clean  salt 
air  and  cooled  my  eyes  with  the  purple  sea.  The 
place  was  full  of  lodgings,  and  the  lodgings  were 
at  that  season  full  of  people,  people  who  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  stare  at  one  another  on  the 

85 


86  EMBARRASSMENTS 

great  flat  down.  There  were  thousands  of  little 
chairs  and  almost  as  many  little  Jews ;  and  there 
was  music  in  an  open  rotunda,  over  which  the 
little  Jews  wagged  their  big  noses.  We  all 
strolled  to  and  fro  and  took  pennyworths  of  rest; 
the  long,  level  cliff-top,  edged  in  places  with  its 
iron  rail,  might  have  been  the  deck  of  a  huge 
crowded  ship.  There  were  old  folks  in  Bath 
chairs,  and  there  was  one  dear  chair,  creeping  to 
its  last  full  stop,  by  the  side  of  which  I  always 
walked.  There  was  in  fine  weather  the  coast  of 
France  to  look  at,  and  there  were  the  usual  things 
to  say  about  it;  there  was  also  in  every  state  of 
the  atmosphere  our  friend  Mrs.  Meldrum,  a  sub 
ject  of  remark  not  less  inveterate.  The  widow 
of  an  officer  in  the  Engineers,  she  had  settled, 
like  many  members  of  the  martial  miscellany, 
well  within  sight  of  the  hereditary  enemy,  who 
however  had  left  her  leisure  to  form  in  spite  of 
the  difference  of  their  years  a  close  alliance  with 
my  mother.  She  was  the  heartiest,  the  keenest, 
the  ugliest  of  women,  the  least  apologetic,  the 
least  morbid  in  her  misfortune.  She  carried  it 
high  aloft,  with  loud  sounds  and  free  gestures, 
made  it  flutter  in  the  breeze  as  if  it  had  been  the 
flag  of  her  country.  It  consisted  mainly  of  a  big 


GLASSES  87 

red  face,  indescribably  out  of  drawing,  from 
which  she  glared  at  you  through  gold-rimmed 
aids  to  vision,  optic  circles  of  such  diameter  and 
so  frequently  displaced  that  some  one  had  vividly 
spoken  of  her  as  flattening  her  nose  against  the 
glass  of  her  spectacles.  She  was  extraordinarily 
near-sighted,  and  whatever  they  did  to  other 
objects  they  magnified  immensely  the  kind  eyes 
behind  them.  Blessed  conveniences  they  were, 
in  their  hideous,  honest  strength  —  they  showed 
the  good  lady  everything  in  the  world  but  her 
own  queerness.  This  element  was  enhanced  by 
wild  braveries  of  dress,  reckless  charges  of  colour 
and  stubborn  resistances  of  cut,  wonderous  en 
counters  in  which  the  art  of  the  toilet  seemed  to 
lay  down  its  life.  She  had  the  tread  of  a  grena 
dier  and  the  voice  of  an  angel. 

In  the  course  of  a  walk  with  her  the  day 
after  my  arrival  I  found  myself  grabbing  her 
arm  with  sudden  and  undue  familiarity.  I  had 
been  struck  by  the  beauty  of  a  face  that  ap 
proached  us  and  I  was  still  more  affected  when  I 
saw  the  face,  at  the  sight  of  my  companion,  open 
like  a  window  thrown  wide.  A  smile  flut 
tered  out  of  it  as  brightly  as  a  drapery  dropped 
from  a  sill  —  a  drapery  shaken  there  in  the  sun 


88  EMBARRASSMENTS 

by  a  young  lady  flanked  with  two  young  men, 
a  wonderful  young  lady  who,  as  we  drew  nearer, 
rushed  up  to  Mrs.  Meldrum  with  arms  flourished 
for  an  embrace.  My  immediate  impression  of  her 
had  been  that  she  was  dressed  in  mourning,  but 
during  the  few  moments  she  stood  talking  with 
our  friend  I  made  more  discoveries.  The  figure 
from  the  neck  down  was  meagre,  the  stature 
insignificant,  but  the  desire  to  please  towered 
high,  as  well  as  the  air  of  infallibly  knowing  how 
and  of  never,  never  missing  it.  This  was  a  little 
person  whom  I  would  have  made  a  high  bid  for  a 
good  chance  to  paint.  The  head,  the  features, 
the  colour,  the  whole  facial  oval  and  radiance  had 
a  wonderful  purity;  the  deep  grey  eyes  —  the 
most  agreeable,  I  thought,  that  I  had  ever  seen 
—  brushed  with  a  kind  of  winglike  grace  every 
object  they  encountered.  Their  possessor  was  just 
back  from  Boulogne,  where  she  had  spent  a  week 
with  dear  Mrs.  Floyd-Taylor:  this  accounted  for 
the  effusiveness  of  her  reunion  with  dear  Mrs. 
Meldrum.  Her  black  garments  were  of  the 
freshest  and  daintiest;  she  suggested  a  pink-and- 
white  wreath  at  a  showy  funeral.  She  con 
founded  us  for  three  minutes  with  her  presence  ; 
she  was  a  beauty  of  the  great  conscious,  public, 


GLASSES  89 

responsible  order.  The  young  men,  her  compan 
ions,  gazed  at  her  and  grinned :  I  could  see  there 
were  very  few  moments  of  the  day  at  which  young 
men,  these  or  others,  would  not  be  so  occupied. 
The  people  who  approached  took  leave  of  their 
manners;  every  one  seemed  to  linger  and  gape. 
When  she  brought  her  face  close  to  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum's  —  and  she  appeared  to  be  always  bringing 
it  close  to  somebody's  —  it  was  a  marvel  that 
objects  so  dissimilar  should  express  the  same 
general  identity,  the  unmistakable  character  of 
the  English  gentlewoman.  Mrs.  Meldrum  sus 
tained  the  comparison  with  her  usual  courage, 
but  I  wondered  why  she  didn't  introduce  me :  I 
should  have  had  no  objection  to  the  bringing  of 
such  a  face  close  to  mine.  However,  when  the 
young  lady  moved  on  with  her  escort  she  herself 
bequeathed  me  a  sense  that  some  such  rapproche 
ment  might  still  occur.  Was  this  by  reason  of  the 
general  frequency  of  encounters  at  Folkestone, 
or  by  reason  of  a  subtle  acknowledgment  that 
she  contrived  to  make  of  the  rights,  on  the  part 
of  others,  that  such  beaut}^  as  hers  created?  I 
was  in  a  position  to  answer  that  question  after 
Mrs.  Meldrum  had  answered  a  few  of  mine. 


II 


FLORA  SAUNT,  the  only  daughter  of  an  old 
soldier,  had  lost  both  her  parents,  her  mother 
within  a  few  months.  Mrs.  Meldrum  had  known 
them,  disapproved  of  them,  considerably  avoided 
them :  she  had  watched  the  girl,  off  and  on,  from 
her  early  childhood.  Flora,  just  twenty,  was  ex 
traordinarily  alone  in  the  world  —  so  alone  that 
she  had  no  natural  chaperon,  no  one  to  stay  with 
but  a  mercenary  stranger,  Mrs.  Hammond  Synge, 
the  sister-in-law  of  one  of  the  young  men  I  had 
just  seen.  She  had  lots  of  friends,  but  none  of 
them  nice :  she  kept  picking  up  impossible  people. 
The  Floyd-Taylors,  with  whom  she  had  been  at 
Boulogne,  were  simply  horrid.  The  Hammond 
Synges  were  perhaps  not  so  vulgar,  but  they  had 
no  conscience  in  their  dealings  with  her. 

"She  knows  what  I  think  of  them,"  said  Mrs. 
90 


GLASSES  91 

Meldrum,  "and  indeed  she  knows  what  I  think 
of  most  things." 

"She  shares  that  privilege  with  most  of  your 
friends !  "  I  replied  laughing. 

"No  doubt;  but  possibly  to  some  of  my  friends 
it  makes  a  little  difference.  That  girl  doesn't 
care  a  button.  She  knows  best  of  all  what  I  think 
of  Flora  Saunt." 

"  And  what  may  your  opinion  be  ?  " 

"Why,  that  she's  not  worth  talking  about  —  an 
idiot  too  abysmal." 

"Doesn't  she  care  for  that?" 

"  Just  enough,  as  you  saw,  to  hug  me  till  I  cry 
out.  She's  too  pleased  with  herself  for  anything 
else  to  matter." 

"Surely,  my  dear  friend,"  I  rejoined,  "she  has 
a  good  deal  to  be  pleased  with!  " 

"  So  every  one  tells  her,  and  so  you  would  have 
told  her  if  I  had  given  you  a  chance.  However, 
that  doesn't  signify  either,  for  her  vanity  is 
beyond  all  making  or  mending.  She  believes  in 
herself,  and  she's  welcome,  after  all,  poor  dear, 
having  only  herself  to  look  to.  I've  seldom  met 
a  young  woman  more  completely  at  liberty  to  be 
silly.  She  has  a  clear  course  —  she'll  make  a 
showy  finish." 


92  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"Well,"  I  replied,  "as  she  probably  will  reduce 
many  persons  to  the  same  degraded  state,  her  par 
taking  of  it  won't  stand  out  so  much." 

"  If  you  mean  that  the  world's  full  of  twaddlers 
I  quite  agree  with  you ! "  cried  Mrs.  Meldrum, 
trumpeting  her  laugh  half  across  the  Channel. 

I  had  after  this  to  consider  a  little  what  she 
would  call  my  mother's  son,  but  I  didn't  let  it 
prevent  me  from  insisting  on  her  making  me 
acquainted  with  Flora  Saunt ;  indeed  I  took  the 
bull  by  the  horns,  urging  that  she  had  drawn  the 
portrait  of  a  nature  which  common  charity  now 
demanded  that  she  should  put  into  relation  with 
a  character  really  fine.  Such  a  frail  creature  was 
just  an  object  of  pity.  This  contention  on  my 
part  had  at  first  of  course  been  jocular;  but 
strange  to  say  it  was  quite  the  ground  I  found 
myself  taking  with  regard  to  our  young  lady  after 
I  had  begun  to  know  her.  I  couldn't  have  said 
what  I  felt  about  her  except  that  she  was  unde 
fended;  from  the  first  of  my  sitting  with  her 
there  after  dinner,  under  the  stars  —  that  was  a 
week  at  Folkestone  of  balmy  nights  and  muffled 
tides  and  crowded  chairs  —  I  became  aware  both 
that  protection  was  wholly  absent  from  her  life 
and  that  she  was  wholly  indifferent  to  its  absence. 


GLASSES  93 

The  odd  thing  was  that  she  was  not  appealing: 
she  was  abjectly,  divinely  conceited,  absurdly, 
fantastically  happy.  Her  beauty  was  as  yet  all 
the  world  to  her,  a  world  she  had  plenty  to  do  to 
live  in.  Mrs.  Meldrum  told  me  more  about  her, 
and  there  was  nothing  that,  as  the  centre  of  a 
group  of  giggling,  nudging  spectators,  she  was 
not  ready  to  tell  about  herself.  She  held  her 
little  court  in  the  crowd,  upon  the  grass,  playing 
her  light  over  Jews  and  Gentiles,  completely  at 
ease  in  all  promiscuities.  It  was  an  effect  of 
these  things  that  from  the  very  first,  with  every 
one  listening,  I  could  mention  that  my  main 
business  with  her  would  be  just  to  have  a  go  at 
her  head  and  to  arrange  in  that  view  for  an  early 
sitting.  It  would  have  been  as  impossible,  I 
think,  to  be  impertinent  to  her  as  it  would  have 
been  to  throw  a  stone  at  a  plate-glass  window;  so 
any  talk  that  went  forward  on  the  basis  of  her 
loveliness  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  and  immediately  became  the  most  general 
and  sociable.  It  was  when  I  saw  all  this  that  I 
judged  how,  though  it  was  the  last  thing  she 
asked  for,  what  one  would  ever  most  have  at  her 
service  was  a  curious  compassion.  That  senti 
ment  was  coloured  by  the  vision  of  the  dire 


94  EMBARRASSMENTS 

exposure  of  a  being  whom  vanity  had  put  so  off 
her  guard.  Hers  was  the  only  vanity  I  have  ever 
known  that  made  its  possessor  superlatively  soft. 
Mrs.  Meldrum's  further  information  contributed 
moreover  to  these  indulgences  —  her  account  of 
the  girl's  neglected  childhood  and  queer  conti 
nental  relegations,  with  straying,  squabbling, 
Monte-Carlo-haunting  parents;  the  more  invidi 
ous  picture,  above  all,  of  her  pecuniary  arrange 
ment,  still  in  force,  with  the  Hammond  Synges, 
who  really,  though  they  never  took  her  out  — 
practically  she  went  out  alone  —  had  their  hands 
half  the  time  in  her  pocket.  She  had  to  pay  for 
everything,  down  to  her  share  of  the  wine-bills 
and  the  horses'  fodder,  down  to  Bertie  Hammond 
Synge's  fare  in  the  "  Underground ;'  when  he 
went  to  the  City  for  her.  She  had  been  left 
with  just  money  enough  to  turn  her  head;  and 
it  hadn't  even  been  put  in  trust,  nothing  pru 
dent  or  proper  had  been  done  with  it.  She 
could  spend  her  capital,  and  at  the  rate  she 
was  going,  expensive,  extravagant  and  with  a 
swarm  of  parasites  to  help,  it  certainly  wouldn't 
last  very  long. 

"Couldn't  you  perhaps  take  her,  independent, 
unencumbered  as  you  are?"  I  asked  of  Mrs.  Mel- 


GLASSES  95 

drum.  "You're  probably,  with  one  exception, 
the  sanest  person  she  ^  knows,  and  you  at  least 
wouldn't  scandalously  fleece  her." 

"How  do  you  know  what  I  wouldn't  do?"  my 
humorous  friend  demanded.  "Of  course  I've 
thought  how  I  can  help  her  —  it  has  kept  me 
awake  at  night.  But  I  can't  help  her  at  all; 
she'll  take  nothing  from  me.  You  know  what 
she  does  —  she  hugs  me  and  runs  away.  She  has 
an  instinct  about  me,  she  feels  that  I've  one 
about  her.  And  then  she  dislikes  me  for  another 
reason  that  I'm  not  quite  clear  about,  but  that 
I'm  well  aware  of  and  that  I  shall  find  out  some 
day.  So  far  as  her  settling  with  me  goes  it 
would  be  impossible  moreover  here:  she  wants 
naturally  enough  a  much  wider  field.  She  must 
live  in  London  —  her  game  is  there.  So  she 
takes  the  line  of  adoring  me,  of  saying  she  can 
never  forget  that  I  was  devoted  to  her  mother  — 
which  I  wouldn't  for  the  world  have  been  —  and 
of  giving  me  a  wide  berth.  I  think  she  positively 
dislikes  to  look  at  me.  It's  all  right;  there's  no 
obligation;  though  people  in  general  can't  take 
their  eyes  off  me." 

"I  see  that  at  this  moment,"  I  replied.  "But 
what  does  it  matter  where  or  how,  for  the  present, 


96  EMBARRASSMENTS 

she  lives?     She'll  marry  infallibly,  marry  early, 
and  everything  then  will  change." 

"Whom  will  she  marry?"  my  companion 
gloomily  asked. 

"Any  one  she  likes.  She's  so  abnormally 
pretty  she  can  do  anything.  She'll  fascinate 
some  nabob  or  some  prince." 

"She'll  fascinate  him  first  and  bore  him  after 
wards.  Moreover  she's  not  so  pretty  as  you  make 
her  out;  she  has  a  scrappy  little  figure." 

"No  doubt;  but  one  doesn't  in  the  least 
notice  it." 

"Not  now,"  said  Mrs.  Meldrum,  "but  one  will 
when  she's  older." 

"When  she's  older  she'll  be  a  princess,  so  it 
won't  matter." 

"She  has  other  drawbacks,"  my  companion 
went  on.  "  Those  wonderful  eyes  are  good  for 
nothing  but  to  roll  about  like  sugar-balls  —  which 
they  greatly  resemble  —  in  a  child's  mouth.  She 
can't  use  them." 

"Use  them?     Why,  she  does  nothing  else." 

"  To  make  fools  of  young  men,  but  not  to  read 
or  write,  not  to  do  any  sort  of  work.  She  never 
opens  a  book,  and  her  maid  writes  her  notes. 
You'll  say  that  those  who  live  in  glass  houses 


GLASSES  97 

shouldn't  throw  stones.  Of  course  I  know  that 
if  I  didn't  wear  my  goggles  I  shouldn't  be  good 
for  much." 

"Do  you  mean  that  Miss  Saunt  ought  to  sport 
such  things  ?  "  I  exclaimed  with  more  horror  than 
I  meant  to  show. 

"I  don't  prescribe  for  her;  I  don't  know  that 
they're  what  she  requires." 

"What's  the  matter  with  her  eyes?"  I  asked 
after  a  moment. 

"I  don't  exactly  know;  but  I  heard  from  her 
mother  years  ago  that  even  as  a  child  they  had 
had  for  a  while  to  put  her  into  spectacles  and 
that,  though  she  hated  them  and  had  been  in  a 
fury  of  disgust,  she  would  always  have  to  be 
extremely  careful.  I'm  sure  I  hope  she  is! " 

I  echoed  the  hope,  but  I  remember  well  the 
impression  this  made  upon  me  —  my  immediate 
pang  of  resentment,  a  disgust  almost  equal  to 
Flora's  own.  I  felt  as  if  a  great  rare  sapphire 
had  split  in  my  hand. 


Ill 


THIS  conversation  occurred  the  night  before  I 
went  back  to  town.  I  settled  on  the  morrow  to 
take  a  late  train,  so  that  I  had  still  my  morning 
to  spend  at  Folkestone,  where  during  the  greater 
part  of  it  I  was  out  with  my  mother.  Every  one 
in  the  place  was  as  usual  out  with  some  one  else, 
and  even  had  I  been  free  to  go  and  take  leave  of 
her  I  should  have  been  sure  that  Flora  Saunt 
would  not  be  at  home.  Just  where  she  was  I 
presently  discovered :  she  was  at  the  far  end  of 
the  cliff,  the  point  at  which  it  overhangs  the 
pretty  view  of  Sandgate  and  Hythe.  Her  back 
however  was  turned  to  this  attraction  ;  it  rested 
with  the  aid  of  her  elbows,  thrust  slightly  behind 
her  so  that  her  scanty  little  shoulders  were  raised 
toward  her  ears,  on  the  high  rail  that  inclosed  the 
down.  Two  gentlemen  stood  before  her  whose 
faces  we  couldn't  see  but  who  even  as  observed 
from  the  rear  were  visibly  absorbed  in  the  charm- 


GLASSES  99 

ing  figure-piece  submitted  to  them.  I  was  freshly 
struck  with  the  fact  that  this  meagre  and  defective 
little  person,  with  the  cock  of  her  hat  and  the 
flutter  of  her  crape,  with  her  eternal  idleness,  her 
eternal  happiness,  her  absence  of  moods  and  mys 
teries  and  the  pretty  presentation  of  her  feet, 
which  especially  now  in  the  supported  slope  of  her 
posture  occupied  with  their  imperceptibility  so 
much  of  the  foreground  —  I  was  reminded  anew, 
I  say,  how  our  young  lady  dazzled  by  some  art 
that  the  enumeration  of  her  merits  didn't  explain 
and  that  the  mention  of  her  lapses  didn't  affect. 
Where  she  was  amiss  nothing  counted,  and  where 
she  was  right  everything  did.  I  say  she  was  want 
ing  in  mystery,  but  that  after  all  was  her  secret. 
This  happened  to  be  my  first  chance  of  introduc 
ing  her  to  my  mother,  who  had  not  much  left  in 
life  but  the  quiet  look  from  under  the  hood  of  her 
chair  at  the  things  which,  when  she  should  have 
quitted  those  she  loved,  she  could  still  trust  to 
make  the  world  good  for  them.  I  wondered  an 
instant  how  much  she  might  be  moved  to  trust 
Flora  Saunt,  and  then  while  the  chair  stood  still 
and  she  waited  I  went  over  and  asked  the  girl  to 
come  and  speak  to  her.  In  this  way  I  saw  that 
if  one  of  Flora's  attendants  was  the  inevitable 


100  EMBARRASSMENTS 

young  Hammond  Synge,  master  of  ceremonies  of 
her  regular  court,  always  offering  the  use  of  a 
telescope  and  accepting  that  of  a  cigar,  the  other 
was  a  personage  I  had  not  yet  encountered,  a 
small  pale  youth  in  showy  knickerbockers,  whose 
eyebrows  and  nose  and  the  glued  points  of  whose 
little  moustache  were  extraordinarily  uplifted  and 
sustained.  I  remember  taking  him  at  first  for  a 
foreigner  and  for  something  of  a  pretender:  I 
scarcely  know  why,  unless  because  of  the  motive 
I  felt  in  the  stare  he  fixed  on  me  when  I  asked 
Miss  Saunt  to  come  away.  He  struck  me  a  little 
as  a  young  man  practising  the  social  art  of 
impertinence;  but  it  didn't  matter,  for  Flora 
came  away  with  alacrity,  bringing  all  her  pretti- 
ness  and  pleasure  and  gliding  over  the  grass  in 
that  rustle  of  delicate  mourning  which  made  the 
endless  variety  of  her  garments,  as  a  painter 
could  take  heed,  strike  one  always  as  the  same 
obscure  elegance.  She  seated  herself  on  the  floor 
of  my  mother's  chair,  a  little  too  much  on  her 
right  instep  as  I  afterwards  gathered,  caressing 
her  stiff  hand,  smiling  up  into  her  cold  face, 
commending  and  approving  her  without  a  reserve 
and  without  a  doubt.  She  told  her  immediately, 
as  if  it  were  something  for  her  to  hold  on  by,  that 


GLASSES  101 

she  was  soon  to  sit  to  me  for  a  "likeness,"  and 
these  words  gave  me  a  chance  to  inquire  if  it 
would  be  the  fate  of  the  picture,  should  I  finish 
it,  to  be  presented  to  the  young  man  in  the 
knickerbockers.  Her  lips,  at  this,  parted  in  a 
stare ;  her  eyes  darkened  to  the  purple  of  one  of 
the  shadow-patches  on  the  sea.  She  showed  for 
the  passing  instant  the  face  of  some  splendid 
tragic  mask,  and  I  remembered  for  the  inconse 
quence  of  it  what  Mrs.  Meldrum  had  said  about 
her  sight.  I  had  derived  from  this  lady  a  worry 
ing  impulse  to  catechise  her,  but  that  didn't  seem 
exactly  kind;  so  I  substituted  another  question, 
inquired  who  the  pretty  young  man  in  knicker 
bockers  might  happen  to  be. 

"  Oh,  a  gentleman  I  met  at  Boulogne.  He  has 
come  over  to  see  me."  After  a  moment  she 
added:  "  He's  Lord  Iffield." 

I  had  never  heard  of  Lord  Iffield,  but  her  men 
tion  of  his  having  been  at  Boulogne  helped  me  to 
give  him  a  niche.  Mrs.  Meldrum  had  inciden 
tally  thrown  a  certain  light  on  the  manners  of 
Mrs.  Floyd-Taylor,  Flora's  recent  hostess  in  that 
charming  town,  a  lady  who,  it  appeared,  had  a 
special  vocation  for  helping  rich  young  men  to 
find  a  use  for  their  leisure.  She  had  always  one 


102  EMBARRASSMENTS 

or  other  in  hand  and  she  had  apparently  on  this 
occasion  pointed  her  lesson  at  the  rare  creature 
on  the  opposite  coast.  I  had  a  vague  idea  that 
Boulogne  was  not  a  resort  of  the  aristocracy  ;  at 
the  same  time  there  might  very  well  have  been  a 
strong  attraction  there  even  for  one  of  the  dar 
lings  of  fortune.  I  could  perfectly  understand  in 
any  case  that  such  a  darling  should  be  drawn  to 
Folkestone  by  Flora  Saunt.  But  it  was  not  in 
truth  of  these  things  I  was  thinking  ;  what  was 
uppermost  in  my  mind  was  a  matter  which, 
though  it  had  no  sort  of  keeping,  insisted  just 
then  on  coming  out. 

"  Is  it  true,  Miss  Saunt,"  I  suddenly  demanded, 
"  that  you're  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  had  some 
warning  about  your  beautiful  eyes?" 

I  was  startled  by  the  effect  of  my  words  ;  the 
girl  threw  back  her  head,  changing  colour  from 
brow  to  chin.  "  True  ?  Who  in  the  world  says 
so?  "  I  repented  of  my  question  in  a  flash  ;  the 
way  she  met  it  made  it  seem  cruel,  and  I  saw  that 
my  mother  looked  at  me  in  some  surprise.  I 
took  care,  in  answer  to  Flora's  challenge,  not  to 
incriminate  Mrs.  Meldrum.  I  answered  that  the 
rumour  had  reached  me  only  in  the  vaguest  form 
and  that  if  I  had  been  moved  to  put  it  to  the  test 


GLASSES  103 

my  very  real  interest  in  her  must  be  held  respon 
sible.  Her  blush  died  away,  but  a  pair  of  still 
prettier  tears  glistened  in  its  track.  "If  you 
ever  hear  such  a  thing  said  again  you  can  say  it's 
a  horrid  lie  !  "  I  had  brought  on  a  commotion 
deeper  than  any  I  was  prepared  for ;  but  it  was 
explained  in  some  degree  by  the  next  words  she 
uttered  :  "  I'm  happy  to  say  there's  nothing  the 
matter  with  any  part  of  my  body  ;  not  the  least 
little  thing  !  "  She  spoke  with  her  habitual  com 
placency,  with  triumphant  assurance  ;  she  smiled 
again,  and  I  could  see  that  she  was  already  sorry 
she  had  shown  herself  too  disconcerted.  She 
turned  it  off  with  a  laugh.  "I've  good  eyes, 
good  teeth,  a  good  digestion  and  a  good  temper. 
I'm  sound  of  wind  and  limb  ! "  Nothing  could 
have  been  more  characteristic  than  her  blush  and 
her  tears,  nothing  less  acceptable  to  her  than  to 
be  thought  not  perfect  in  every  particular.  She 
couldn't  submit  to  the  imputation  of  a  flaw.  I 
expressed  my  delight  in  what  she  told  me,  assur 
ing  her  I  should  always  do  battle  for  her  ;  and  as 
if  to  rejoin  her  companions  she  got  up  from  her 
place  on  my  mother's  toes.  The  young  men  pre 
sented  their  backs  to  us ;  they  were  leaning  on 
the  rail  of  the  cliff.  Our  incident  had  produced 


104  EMBARRASSMENTS 

a  certain  awkwardness,  and  while  I  was  thinking 
of  what  next  to  say  she  exclaimed  irrelevantly  : 
"Don't  you  know?  He'll  be  Lord  Considine." 
At  that  moment  the  youth  marked  for  this  high 
destiny  turned  round,  and  she  went  on,  to 
my  mother  :  "I'll  introduce  him  to  you — he's 
awfully  nice."  She  beckoned  and  invited  him 
with  her  parasol ;  the  movement  struck  me  as 
taking  everything  for  granted.  I  had  heard  of 
Lord  Considine  and  if  I  had  not  been  able  to 
place  Lord  Iffield  it  was  because  I  didn't  know 
the  name  of  his  eldest  son.  The  young  man  took 
no  notice  of  Miss  Saunt's  appeal ;  he  only  stared 
a  moment  and  then  on  her  repeating  it  quietly 
turned  his  back.  She  was  an  odd  creature  :  she 
didn't  blush  at  this ;  she  only  said  to  my  mother 
apologetically,  but  with  the  frankest,  sweetest 
amusement :  "  You  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  He's 
a  monster  of  shyness  !  "  It  was  as  if  she  were 
sorry  for  every  one  —  for  Lord  Iffield,  the  victim 
of  a  complaint  so  painful,  and  for  my  mother,  the 
object  of  a  trifling  incivility.  "  I'm  sure  I  don't 
want  him !  "  said  my  mother ;  but  Flora  added 
some  remark  about  the  rebuke  she  would  give 
him  for  slighting  us.  She  would  clearly  never 
explain  anything  by  any  failure  of  her  own 


GLASSES  105 

power.  There  rolled  over  me  while  she  took 
leave  of  us  and  floated  back  to  her  friends  a  wave 
of  tenderness  superstitious  and  silly.  I  seemed 
somehow  to  see  her  go  forth  to  her  fate  ;  and  yet 
what  should  fill  out  this  orb  of  a  high  destiny  if 
not  such  beauty  and  such  joy  ?  I  had  a  dim  idea 
that  Lord  Considine  was  a  great  proprietor,  and 
though  there  mingled  with  it  a  faint  impression 
that  I  shouldn't  like  his  son  the  result  of  the 
two  images  was  a  whimsical  prayer  that  the  girl 
mightn't  miss  her  possible  fortune. 


IV 


ONE  day  in  the  course  of  the  following  June 
there  was  ushered  into  my  studio  a  gentleman 
whom  I  had  not  yet  seen  but  with  whom  I  had 
been  very  briefly  in  correspondence.  A  letter 
from  him  had  expressed  to  me  some  days  before 
his  regret  on  learning  that  my  "splendid  por 
trait"  of  Miss  Flora  Louisa  Saunt,  whose  full 
name  figured  by  her  own  wish  in  the  catalogue 
of  the  exhibition  of  the  Academy,  had  found  a 
purchaser  before  the  close  of  the  private  view. 
He  took  the  liberty  of  inquiring  whether  I  might 
have  at  his  service  some  other  memorial  of  the 
same  lovely  head,  some  preliminary  sketch,  some 
study  for  the  picture.  I  had  replied  that  I  had 
indeed  painted  Miss  Saunt  more  than  once  and 
that  if  he  were  interested  in  my  work  I  should 
be  happy  to  show  him  what  I  had  done.  Mr. 
Geoffrey  Dawling,  the  person  thus  introduced  to 
me,  stumbled  into  my  room  with  awkward  move 
ments  and  equivocal  sounds  —  a  long,  lean,  con- 

106 


GLASSES  107 

fused,  confusing  young  man,  with  a  bad  complex 
ion  and  large,  protrusive  teeth.  He  bore  in  its 
most  indelible  pressure  the  postmark,  as  it  were, 
of  Oxford,  and  as  soon  as  he  opened  his  mouth  I 
perceived,  in  addition  to  a  remarkable  revelation 
of  gums,  that  the  text  of  the  queer  communica 
tion  matched  the  registered  envelope.  He  was 
full  of  refinements  and  angles,  of  dreary  and  dis 
tinguished  knowledge.  Of  his  unconscious  droll 
ery  his  dress  freely  partook  ;  it  seemed,  from  the 
gold  ring  into  which  his  red  necktie  was  passed 
to  the  square  toe-caps  of  his  boots,  to  conform 
with  a  high  sense  of  modernness  to  the  fashion 
before  the  last.  There  were  moments  when  his 
overdone  urbanity,  all  suggestive  stammers  and 
interrogative  quavers,  made  him  scarcely  intelli 
gible  ;  but  I  felt  him  to  be  a  gentleman  and  I 
liked  the  honesty  of  his  errand  and  the  expres 
sion  of  his  good  green  eyes. 

As  a  worshipper  at  the  shrine  of  beauty  how 
ever  he  needed  explaining,  especially  when  I 
found  he  had  no  acquaintance  with  my  brilliant 
model ;  had  on  the  mere  evidence  of  my  picture 
taken,  as  he  said,  a  tremendous  fancy  to  her  face. 
I  ought  doubtless  to  have  been  humiliated  by  the 
simplicity  of  his  judgment  of  it,  a  judgment  for 


108  EMBARRASSMENTS 

which  the  rendering  was  lost  in  the  subject,  quite 
leaving  out  the  element  of  art.  He  was  like  the 
innocent  reader  for  whom  the  story  is  "really 
true  "  and  the  author  a  negligible  quantity.  He 
had  come  to  me  only  because  he  wanted  to  pur 
chase,  and  I  remember  being  so  amused  at  his 
attitude,  which  I  had  never  seen  equally  marked 
in  a  person  of  education,  that  I  asked  him  why, 
for  the  sort  of  enjoyment  he  desired,  it  wouldn't 
be  more  to  the  point  to  deal  directly  with  the 
lady.  He  stared  and  blushed  at  this :  it  was 
plain  the  idea  frightened  him.  He  was  an  ex 
traordinary  case  —  personally  so  modest  that  I 
could  see  it  had  never  occurred  to  him.  He  had 
fallen  in  love  with  a  painted  sign  and  seemed  con 
tent  just  to  dream  of  what  it  stood  for.  He  was 
the  young  prince  in  the  legend  or  the  comedy 
who  loses  his  heart  to  the  miniature  of  the  out- 
land  princess.  Until  I  knew  him  better  this  puz 
zled  me  much  —  the  link  was  so  missing  between 
his  sensibility  and  his  type.  He  was  of  course 
bewildered  by  my  sketches,  which  implied  in  the 
beholder  some  sense  of  intention  and  quality;  but 
for  one  of  them,  a  comparative  failure,  he  ended 
by  conceiving  a  preference  so  arbitrary  and  so 
lively  that,  taking  no  second  look  at  the  others, 


GLASSES  109 

he  expressed  the  wish  to  possess  it  and  fell  into 
the  extremity  of  confusion  over  the  question  of 
the  price.  I  simplified  that  problem,  and  he  went 
off  without  having  asked  me  a  direct  question 
about  Miss  Saunt,  yet  with  his  acquisition  under 
his  arm.  His  delicacy  was  such  that  he  evidently 
considered  his  rights  to  be  limited ;  he  had  ac 
quired  none  at  all  in  regard  to  the  original  of  the 
picture.  There  were  others  —  for  I  was  curious 
about  him  —  that  I  wanted  him  to  feel  I  con 
ceded  :  I  should  have  been  glad  of  his  carrying 
away  a  sense  of  ground  acquired  for  coming  back. 
To  insure  this  I  had  probably  only  to  invite  him, 
and  I  perfectly  recall  the  impulse  that  made  me 
forbear.  It  operated  suddenly  from  within  while 
he  hung  about  the  door  and  in  spite  of  the  diffi 
dent  appeal  that  blinked  in  his  gentle  grin.  If 
he  was  smitten  with  Flora's  ghost  what  mightn't 
be  the  direct  force  of  the  luminary  that  could 
cast  such  a  shadow?  This  source  of  radiance, 
flooding  my  poor  place,  might  very  well  happen 
to  be  present  the  next  time  he  should  turn  up. 
The  idea  was  sharp  within  me  that  there  were 
complications  it  was  no  mission  of  mine  to  bring 
about.  If  they  were  to  occur  they  might  occur 
by  a  logic  of  their  own. 


110  EMBARRASSMENTS 

Let  me  say  at  once  that  they  did  occur  and 
that  I  perhaps  after  all  had  something  to  do 
with  it.  If  Mr.  Dawling  had  departed  with 
out  a  fresh  appointment  he  was  to  reappear  six 
months  later  under  protection  no  less  adequate 
than  that  of  our  young  lady  herself.  I  had 
seen  her  repeatedly  for  months  :  she  had  grown 
to  regard  my  studio  as  the  tabernacle  of  her 
face.  This  prodigy  was  frankly  there  the  sole 
object  of  interest ;  in  other  places  there  were 
occasionally  other  objects.  The  freedom  of  her 
manners  continued  to  be  stupefying ;  there  was 
nothing  so  extraordinary  save  the  absence  in  con 
nection  with  it  of  any  catastrophe.  She  was  kept 
innocent  by  her  egotism,  but  she  was  helped  also, 
though  she  had  now  put  off  her  mourning,  by 
the  attitude  of  the  lone  orphan  who  had  to  be 
a  law  unto  herself.  It  was  as  a  lone  orphan 
that  she  came  and  went,  as  a  lone  orphan  that 
she  was  the  centre  of  a  crush.  The  neglect  of 
the  Hammond  Synges  gave  relief  to  this  char 
acter,  and  she  paid  them  handsomely  to  be,  as 
every  one  said,  shocking.  Lord  Iffield  had  gone 
to  India  to  shoot  tigers,  but  he  returned  in  time 
for  the  private  view  :  it  was  he  who  had  snapped 
up,  as  Flora  called  it,  the  gem  of  the  exhibition. 


GLASSES  111 

My  hope  for  the  girl's  future  had  slipped  igno- 
miniously  off  his  back,  but  after  his  purchase 
of  the  portrait  I  tried  to  cultivate  a  new  faith. 
The  girl's  own  faith  was  wonderful.  It  couldn't 
however  be  contagious :  too  great  was  the  limit 
of  her  sense  of  what  painters  call  values.  Her 
colours  were  laid  on  like  blankets  on  a  cold 
night.  How  indeed  could  a  person  speak  the 
truth  who  was  always  posturing  and  bragging? 
She  was  after  all  vulgar  enough,  and  by  the 
time  I  had  mastered  her  profile  and  could  al 
most  with  my  eyes  shut  do  it  in  a  single  line 
I  was  decidedly  tired  of  her  perfection.  There 
grew  to  be  something  silly  in  its  eternal  smooth 
ness.  One  moved  with  her  moreover  among  phe 
nomena  mismated  and  unrelated ;  nothing  in  her 
talk  ever  matched  with  anything  out  of  it.  Lord 
Iffield  was  dying  of  love  for  her,  but  his  fam 
ily  was  leading  him  a  life.  His  mother,  horrid 
woman,  had  told  some  one  that  she  would  rather 
he  should  be  swallowed  by  a  tiger  than  marry 
a  girl  not  absolutely  one  of  themselves.  He  had 
given  his  young  friend  unmistakable  signs,  but 
he  was  lying  low,  gaining  time  :  it  was  in  his 
father's  power  to  be,  both  in  personal  and  in 
pecuniary  ways,  excessively  nasty  to  him.  His 


112  EMBARRASSMENTS 

father  wouldn't  last  for  ever  —  quite  the  con 
trary  ;  and  he  knew  how  thoroughly,  in  spite 
of  her  youth,  her  beauty  and  the  swarm  of  her 
admirers,  some  of  them  positively  threatening 
in  their  passion,  he  could  trust  her  to  hold 
out.  There  were  richer,  cleverer  men,  there 
were  greater  personages  too,  but  she  liked  her 
"little  viscount"  just  as  he  was,  and  liked  to 
think  that,  bullied  and  persecuted,  he  had  her 
there  so  luxuriously  to  rest  upon.  She  came 
back  to  me  with  tale  upon  tale,  and  it  all  might 
be  or  mightn't.  I  never  met  my  pretty  model 
in  the  world  —  she  moved,  it  appeared,  in  ex 
alted  circles  —  and  could  only  admire,  in  her 
wealth  of  illustration,  the  grandeur  of  her  life 
and  the  freedom  of  her  hand. 

I  had  on  the  first  opportunity  spoken  to  her 
of  Geoffrey  Bawling,  and  she  had  listened  to  my 
story  so  far  as  she  had  the  art  of  such  patience, 
asking  me  indeed  more  questions  about  him  than 
I  could  answer  ;  then  she  had  capped  my  anec 
dote  with  others  much  more  striking,  revela 
tions  of  effects  produced  in  the  most  extraordi 
nary  quarters :  on  people  who  had  followed  her 
into  railway-carriages ;  guards  and  porters  even 
who  had  literally  stuck  there ;  others  who  had 


GLASSES  118 

spoken  to  her  in  shops  and  -hung  about  her 
house-door  ;  cabmen,  upon  her  honour,  in  Lon 
don,  who,  to  gaze  their  fill  at  her,  had  found 
excuses  to  thrust  their  petrifaction  through  the 
very  glasses  of  four-wheelers.  She  lost  herself 
in  these  reminiscences,  the  moral  of  which  was 
that  poor  Mr.  Dawling  was  only  one  of  a  mill 
ion.  When  therefore  the  next  autumn  she  flour 
ished  into  my  studio  with  her  odd  companion  at 
her  heels  her  first  care  was  to  make  clear  to  me 
that  if  he  was  now  in  servitude  it  wasn't  be 
cause  she  had  run  after  him.  Dawling  hilari 
ously  explained  that  when  one  wished  very  much 
to  get  anything  one  usually  ended  by  doing  so 
—  a  proposition  which  led  me  wholly  to  dissent 
and  our  young  lady  to  asseverate  that  she  hadn't 
in  the  least  wished  to  get  Mr.  Dawling.  She 
mightn't  have  wished  to  get  him,  but  she  wished 
to  show  him,  and  I  seemed  to  read  that  if  she 
could  treat  him  as  a  trophy  her  affairs  were  rather 
at  the  ebb.  True  there  always  hung  from  her 
belt  a  promiscuous  fringe  of  scalps.  Much  at  any 
rate  would  have  come  and  gone  since  our  separa 
tion  in  July.  She  had  spent  four  months  abroad, 
where,  on  Swiss  and  Italian  lakes,  in  German  cities, 
in  Paris,  many  accidents  might  have  happened. 


I  HAD  been  again  with  my  mother,  but  except 
Mrs.  Meldrum  and  the  gleam  of  France  had  not 
found  at  Folkestone  my  old  resources  and  pas 
times.  Mrs.  Meldrum,  much  edified  by  my  re 
port  of  the  performances,  as  she  called  them, 
in  my  studio,  had  told  me  that  to  her  know 
ledge  Flora  would  soon  be  on  the  straw  :  she 
had  cut  from  her  capital  such  fine  fat  slices  that 
there  was  almost  nothing  more  left  to  swallow. 
Perched  on  her  breezy  cliff  the  good  lady  daz 
zled  me  as  usual  by  her  universal  light :  she 
knew  so  much  more  about  everything  and  every 
body  than  I  could  ever  squeeze  out  of  my  colour- 
tubes.  She  knew  that  Flora  was  acting  on  system 
and  absolutely  declined  to  be  interfered  with  : 
her  precious  reasoning  was  that  her  money  would 
last  as  long  as  she  should  need  it,  that  a  magnifi 
cent  marriage  would  crown  her  charms  before  she 
should  be  really  pinched.  She  had  a  sum  put 
114 


GLASSES  115 

by  for  a  liberal  outfit ;  meanwhile  the  proper 
use  of  the  rest  was  to  decorate  her  for  the  ap 
proaches  to  the  altar,  keep  her  afloat  in  the 
society  in  which  she  would  most  naturally  meet 
her  match.  Lord  Iffield  had  been  seen  with  her 
at  Lucerne,  at  Cadenabbia ;  but  it  was  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum's  conviction  that  nothing  was  to  be  ex 
pected  of  him  but  the  most  futile  flirtation. 
The  girl  had  a  certain  hold  of  him,  but  with  a 
great  deal  of  swagger  he  hadn't  the  spirit  of  a 
sheep  :  he  was  in  fear  of  his  father  and  would 
never  commit  himself  in  Lord  Considine's  life 
time.  The  most  Flora  might  achieve  would  be 
that  he  wouldn't  marry  some  one  else.  Geoffrey 
Bawling,  to  Mrs.  Meldrum's  knowledge  (I  had 
told  her  of  the  young  man's  visit)  had  attached 
himself  on  the  way  back  from  Italy  to  the  Ham 
mond  Synge  group.  My  informant  was  in  a  posi 
tion  to  be  definite  about  this  dangler  ;  she  knew 
about  his  people  :  she  had  heard  of  him  before. 
Hadn't  he  been,  at  Oxford,  a  friend  of  one  of  her 
nephews  ?  Hadn't  he  spent  the  Christmas  holi 
days  precisely  three  years  before  at  her  brother- 
in-law's  in  Yorkshire,  taking  that  occasion  to 
get  himself  refused  with  derision  by  wilful  Betty, 
the  second  daughter  of  the  house  ?  Her  sister, 


116  EMBARRASSMENTS 

who  liked  the  floundering  youth,  had  written  to 
her  to  complain  of  Betty,  and  that  the  young 
man  should  now  turn  up  as  an  appendage  of 
Flora's  was  one  of  those  oft-cited  proofs  that 
the  world  is  small  and  that  there  are  not  enough 
people  to  go  round.  His  father  had  been  some 
thing  or  other  in  the  Treasury  ;  his  grandfather, 
on  the  mother's  side,  had  been  something  or  other 
in  the  Church.  He  had  come  into  the  paternal 
estate,  two  or  three  thousand  a  year  in  Hamp 
shire  ;  but  he  had  let  the  place  advantageously 
and  was  generous  to  four  ugly  sisters  who  lived 
at  Bournemouth  and  adored  him.  The  family 
was  hideous  all  round,  but  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
He  was  supposed  to  be  unspeakably  clever ;  he 
was  fond  of  London,  fond  of  books,  of  intellect 
ual  society  and  of  the  idea  of  a  political  career. 
That  such  a  man  should  be  at  the  same  time  fond 
of  Flora  Saunt  attested,  as  the  phrase  in  the  first 
volume  of  Gibbon  has  it,  the  variety  of  his  in 
clinations.  I  was  soon  to  learn  that  he  was 
fonder  of  her  than  of  all  the  other  things  to 
gether.  Betty,  one  of  five  and  with  views  above 
her  station,  was  at  any  rate  felt  at  home  to  have 
dished  herself  by  her  perversity.  Of  course  no 
one  had  looked  at  her  since  and  no  one  would 


GLASSES  117 

ever  look  at  her  again.  It  would  be  eminently 
desirable  that  Flora  should  learn  the  lesson  of 
Betty's  fate. 

I  was  not  struck,  I  confess,  with  all  this  in  my 
mind,  by  any  symptoms  on  our  young  lady's  part 
of  that  sort  of  meditation.  The  only  moral  she 
saw  in  anything  was  that  of  her  incomparable 
countenance,  which  Mr.  Bawling,  smitten  even 
like  the  railway  porters  and  the  cabmen  by  the 
doom-dealing  gods,  had  followed  from  London  to 
Venice  and  from  Venice  back  to  London  again. 
I  afterwards  learned  that  her  version  of  this 
episode  was  profusely  inexact:  his  personal  ac 
quaintance  with  her  had  been  determined  by  an 
accident  remarkable  enough,  I  admit,  in  connec 
tion  with  what  had  gone  before  —  a  coincidence 
at  all  events  superficially  striking.  At  Munich, 
returning  from  a  tour  in  the  Tyrol  with  two  of 
his  sisters,  he  had  found  himself  at  the  table 
d'hote  of  his  inn  opposite  to  the  full  presentment 
of  that  face  of  which  the  mere  clumsy  copy  had 
made  him  dream  and  desire.  He  had  been  tossed 
by  it  to  a  height  so  vertiginous  as  to  involve  a 
retreat  from  the  table;  but  the  next  day  he  had 
dropped  with  a  resounding  thud  at  the  very  feet 
of  his  apparition.  On  the  following,  with  an 


118  EMBARRASSMENTS 

equal  incoherence,  a  sacrifice  even  of  his  bewil 
dered  sisters,  whom  he  left  behind,  he  made  an 
heroic  effort  to  escape  by  flight  from  a  fate  of 
which  he  already  felt  the  cold  breath.  That  fate, 
in  London,  very  little  later,  drove  him  straight 
before  it  —  drove  him  one  Sunday  afternoon,  in 
the  rain,  to  the  door  of  the  Hammond  Synges. 
He  marched  in  other  words  close  up  to  the  can 
non  that  was  to  blow  him  to  pieces.  But  three 
weeks,  when  he  reappeared  to  me,  had  elapsed  since 
then,  yet  (to  vary  my  metaphor)  the  burden  he 
was  to  carry  for  the  rest  of  his  days  was  firmly 
lashed  to  his  back.  I  don't  mean  by  this  that 
Flora  had  been  persuaded  to  contract  her  scope ; 
I  mean  that  he  had  been  treated  to  the  uncon 
ditional  snub  which,  as  the  event  was  to  show, 
couldn't  have  been  bettered  as  a  means  of  secur 
ing  him.  She  hadn't  calculated,  but  she  had  said 
"  Never !  "  and  that  word  had  made  a  bed  big 
enough  for  his  long-legged  patience.  He  became 
from  this  moment  to  my  mind  the  interesting  fig 
ure  in  the  piece. 

Now  that  he  had  acted  without  my  aid  I  was 
free  to  show  him  this,  and  having  on  his  own  side 
something  to  show  me  he  repeatedly  knocked  at 
my  door.  What  he  brought  with  him  on  these 


GLASSES  119 

occasions  was  a  simplicity  so  huge  that,  as  I  turn 
my  ear  to  the  past,  I  seem  even  now  to  hear  it 
bumping  up  and  down  my  stairs.  That  was 
really  what  I  saw  of  him  in  the  light  of  his 
behaviour.  He  had  fallen  in  love  as  he  might 
have  broken  his  leg,  and  the  fracture  was  of  a 
sort  that  would  make  him  permanently  lame.  It 
was  the  whole  man  who  limped  and  lurched,  with 
nothing  of  him  left  in  the  same  position  as  before. 
The  tremendous  cleverness,  the  literary  society, 
the  political  ambition,  the  Bournemouth  sisters 
all  seemed  to  flop  with  his  every  movement  a 
little  nearer  to  the  floor.  I  hadn't  had  an  Ox 
ford  training  and  I  had  never  encountered  the 
great  man  at  whose  feet  poor  Bawling  had  most 
submissively  sat  and  who  had  addressed  him  his 
most  destructive  sniffs ;  but  I  remember  asking 
myself  if  such  privileges  had  been  an  indispen 
sable  preparation  to  the  career  on  which  my  friend 
appeared  now  to  have  embarked.  I  remember  too 
making  up  my  mind  about  the  cleverness,  which 
had  its  uses  and  I  suppose  in  impenetrable  shades 
even  its  critics,  but  from  which  the  friction  of 
mere  personal  intercourse  was  not  the  sort  of 
process  to  extract  a  revealing  spark.  He  accepted 
without  a  question  both  his  fever  and  his  chill, 


120  EMBARRASSMENTS 

and  the  only  thing  he  showed  any  subtlety  about 
was  this  convenience  of  my  friendship.  He 
doubtless  told  me  his  simple  story,  but  the  matter 
comes  back  to  me  in  a  kind  of  sense  of  my  being 
rather  the  mouthpiece,  of  my  having  had  to  thresh 
it  out  for  him.  He  took  it  from  me  without  a 
groan,  and  I  gave  it  to  him,  as  we  used  to  say, 
pretty  hot ;  he  took  it  again  and  again,  spending 
his  odd  half-hours  with  me  as  if  for  the  very 
purpose  of  learning  how  idiotically  he  was  in 
love.  He  told  me  I  made  him  see  things :  to 
begin  with,  hadn't  I  first  made  him  see  Flora 
Saunt?  I  wanted  him  to  give  her  up  and  lumi 
nously  informed  him  why ;  on  which  he  never 
protested  nor  contradicted,  never  was  even  so 
alembicated  as  to  declare  just  for  the  sake  of  the 
drama  that  he  wouldn't.  He  simply  and  undra- 
matically  didn't,  and  when  at  the  end  of  three 
months  I  asked  him  what  was  the  use  of  talking 
with  such  a  fellow  his  nearest  approach  to  a  justi 
fication  was  to  say  that  what  made  him  want  to 
help  her  was  just  the  deficiencies  I  dwelt  on.  I 
could  only  reply  without  pointing  the  moral : 
"  Oh,  if  you're  as  sorry  for  her  as  that !  "  I  too 
was  nearly  as  sorry  for  her  as  that,  but  it  only 
led  me  to  be  sorrier  still  for  other  victims  of  this 


GLASSES  121 

compassion.  With  Dawling  as  with  me  the  com 
passion  was  at  first  in  excess  of  any  visible  mo 
tive  ;  so  that  when  eventually  the  motive  was 
supplied  each  could  to  a  certain  extent  compli 
ment  the  other  on  the  fineness  of  his  foresight. 

After  he  had  begun  to  haunt  my  studio  Miss 
Saunt  quite  gave  it  up,  and  I  finally  learned  that 
she  accused  me  of  conspiring  with  him  to  put 
pressure  on  her  to  marry  him.  She  didn't  know 
I  would  take  it  that  way ;  else  she  wouldn't  have 
brought  him  to  see  me.  It  was  in  her  view  a 
part  of  the  conspiracy  ;  that  to  show  him  a  kind 
ness  I  asked  him  at  last  to  sit  to  me.  I  daresay 
moreover  she  was  disgusted  to  hear  that  I  had 
ended  by  attempting  almost  as  many  sketches  of 
his  beauty  as  I  had  attempted  of  hers.  What 
was  the  value  of  tributes  to  beauty  by  a  hand 
that  luxuriated  in  ugliness  ?  My  relation  to  poor 
Dawling's  want  of  modelling  was  simple  enough. 
I  was  really  digging  in  that  sandy  desert  for  the 
buried  treasure  of  his  soul. 


VI 


IT  befell  at  this  period,  just  before  Christmas, 
that  on  my  having  gone  under  pressure  of  the  sea 
son  into  a  great  shop  to  buy  a  toy  or  two,  my  eye, 
fleeing  from  superfluity,  lighted  at  a  distance  on 
the  bright  concretion  of  Flora  Saunt,  an  exhibita- 
bility  that  held  its  own  even  against  the  most 
plausible  pinkness  of  the  most  developed  dolls. 
A  huge  quarter  of  the  place,  the  biggest  bazaar 
"  on  earth,"  was  peopled  with  these  and  other  effi 
gies  and  fantasies,  as  well  as  with  purchasers  and 
vendors,  haggard  alike  in  the  blaze  of  the  gas 
with  hesitations.  I  was  just  about  to  appeal  to 
Flora  to  avert  that  stage  of  my  errand  when  I  saw 
that  she  was  accompanied  by  a  gentleman  whose 
identity,  though  more  than  a  year  had  elapsed, 
came  back  to  me  from  the  Folkestone  cliff.  It 
had  been  associated  in  that  scene  with  showy 
knickerbockers  ;  at  present  it  overflowed  more 

splendidly   into   a   fur-trimmed   overcoat.      Lord 

122 


GLASSES  123 

Iffield's  presence  made  me  waver  an  instant  before 
crossing  over ;  and  during  that  instant  Flora, 
blank  and  undistinguishing,  as  if  she  too  were 
after  all  weary  of  alternatives,  looked  straight 
across  at  me.  I  was  on  the  point  of  raising  my 
hat  to  her  when  I  observed  that  her  face  gave  no 
sign.  I  was  exactly  in  the  line  of  her  vision,  but 
she  either  didn't  see  me  or  didn't  recognise  me,  or 
else  had  a  reason  to  pretend  she  didn't.  Was  her 
reason  that  I  had  displeased  her  and  that  she 
wished  to  punish  me?  I  had  always  thought  it 
one  of  her  merits  that  she  wasn't  vindictive. 
She  at  any  rate  simply  looked  away ;  and  at 
this  moment  one  of  the  shop-girls,  who  had  ap 
parently  gone  off  in  search  of  it,  bustled  up  to 
her  with  a  small  mechanical  toy.  It  so  happened 
that  I  followed  closely  what  then  took  place, 
afterwards  recognising  that  I  had  been  led  to 
do  so,  led  even  through  the  crowd  to  press 
nearer  for  the  purpose,  by  an  impression  of 
which  in  the  act  I  was  not  fully  conscious. 

Flora,  with  the  toy  in  her  hand,  looked  round 
at  her  companion ;  then  seeing  his  attention  had 
been  solicited  in  another  quarter  she  moved  away 
with  the  shop-girl,  who  had  evidently  offered  to 
conduct  her  into  the  presence  of  more  objects  of 


124  EMBARRASSMENTS 

the  same  sort.  When  she  reached  the  indicated 
spot  I  was  in  a  position  still  to  observe  her.  She 
had  asked  some  question  about  the  working  of 
the  toy,  and  the  girl,  taking  it  herself,  began  to 
explain  the  little  secret.  Flora  bent  her  head 
over  it,  but  she  clearly  didn't  understand.  I 
saw  her,  in  a  manner  that  quickened  my  curios 
ity,  give  a  glance  back  at  the  place  from  which 
she  had  come.  Lord  Iffield  was  talking  with 
another  young  person :  she  satisfied  herself  of 
this  by  the  aid  of  a  question  addressed  to  her 
own  attendant.  She  then  drew  closer  to  the 
table  near  which  she  stood  and,  turning  her 
back  to  me,  bent  her  head  lower  over  the  col 
lection  of  toys  and  more  particularly  over  the 
small  object  the  girl  had  attempted  to  explain. 
She  took  it  back  and,  after  a  moment,  with  her 
face  well  averted,  made  an  odd  motion  of  her 
arms  and  a  significant  little  duck  of  her  head. 
These  slight  signs,  singular  as  it  may  appear, 
produced  in  my  bosom  an  agitation  so  great 
that  I  failed  to  notice  Lord  Iffield's  where 
abouts.  He  had  rejoined  her ;  he  was  close 
upon  her  before  I  knew  it  or  before  she  knew 
it  herself.  I  felt  at  that  instant  the  strangest 
of  all  impulses:  if  it  could  have  operated  more 


GLASSES  125 

rapidly  it  would  have  caused  me  to  dash  between 
them  in  some  such  manner  as  to  give  Flora  a 
warning.  In  fact  as  it  was  I  think  I  could  have 
done  this  in  time  had  I  not  been  checked  by  a 
curiosity  stronger  still  than  my  impulse.  There 
were  three  seconds  during  which  I  saw  the  young 
man  and  yet  let  him  come  on.  Didn't  I  make 
the  quick  calculation  that  if  he  didn't  catch 
what  Flora  was  doing  I  too  might  perhaps  not 
catch  it  ?  She  at  any  rate  herself  took  the 
alarm.  On  perceiving  her  companion's  nearness 
she  made,  still  averted,  another  duck  of  her  head 
and  a  shuffle  of  her  hands  so  precipitate  that 
a  little  tin  steamboat  she  had  been  holding  es 
caped  from  them  and  rattled  down  to  the  floor 
with  a  sharpness  that  I  hear  at  this  hour.  Lord 
Iffield  had  already  seized  her  arm  ;  with  a  violent 
jerk  he  brought  her  round  toward  him.  Then  it 
was  that  there  met  my  eyes  a  quite  distressing 
sight :  this  exquisite  creature,  blushing,  glaring, 
exposed,  with  a  pair  of  big  black-rimmed  eye 
glasses,  defacing  her  by  their  position,  crookedly 
astride  of  her  beautiful  nose.  She  made  a  grab 
at  them  with  her  free  hand  while  I  turned  con 
fusedly  away. 


VII 


I  DON'T  remember  how  soon  it  was  I  spoke  to 
Geoffrey  Dawling ;  his  sittings  were  irregular, 
but  it  was  certainly  the  very  next  time  he  gave 
me  one. 

"Has  any  rumour  ever  reached  you  of  Miss 
Saunt's  having  anything  the  matter  with  her 
eyes  ? "  He  stared  with  a  candour  that  was  a 
sufficient  answer  to  my  question,  backing  it  up 
with  a  shocked  and  mystified  "  Never  !  "  Then 
I  asked  him  if  he  had  observed  in  her  any  symp 
tom,  however  disguised,  of  embarrassed  sight :  on 
which,  after  a  moment's  thought,  he  exclaimed 
"  Disguised  ? "  as  if  my  use  of  that  word  had 
vaguely  awakened  a  train.  "  She's  not  a  bit 
myopic,"  he  said ;  "  she  doesn't  blink  or  contract 
her  lids."  I  fully  recognised  this  and  I  men 
tioned  that  she  altogether  denied  the  impeach 
ment  ;  owing  it  to  him  moreover  to  explain  the 
ground  of  my  inquiry,  I  gave  him  a  sketch  of 
126 


GLASSES  127 

the  incident  that  had  taken  place  before  me  at 
the  shop.  He  knew  all  about  Lord  Iffield  :  that 
nobleman  had  figured  freely  in  our  conversation 
as  his  preferred,  his  injurious  rival.  Poor  Daw- 
ling's  contention  was  that  if  there  had  been  a 
definite  engagement  between  his  lordship  and  the 
young  lady,  the  sort  of  thing  that  was  announced 
in  The  Morning  Post,  renunciation  and  retirement 
would  be  comparatively  easy  to  him ;  but  that 
having  waited  in  vain  for  any  such  assurance  he 
was  entitled  to  act  as  if  the  door  were  not  really 
closed  or  were  at  any  rate  not  cruelly  locked. 
He  was  naturally  much  struck  with  my  anecdote 
and  still  more  with  my  interpretation  of  it. 

"  There  is  something,  there  is  something  —  pos 
sibly  something  very  grave,  certainly  something 
that  requires  she  should  make  use  of  artificial 
aids.  She  won't  admit  it  publicly,  because  with 
her  idolatry  of  her  beauty,  the  feeling  she  is  all 
made  up  of,  she  sees  in  such  aids  nothing  but  the 
humiliation  and  the  disfigurement.  She  has  used 
them  in  secret,  but  that  is  evidently  not  enough, 
for  the  affection  she  suffers  from,  apparently  some 
definite  ailment,  has  lately  grown  much  worse. 
She  looked  straight  at  me  in  the  shop,  which  was 
violently  lighted,  without  seeing  it  was  I.  At 


128  EMBARRASSMENTS 

the  same  distance,  at  Folkestone,  where  as  you 
know  I  first  met  her,  where  I  heard  this  mystery 
hinted  at  and  where  she  indignantly  denied  the 
thing,  she  appeared  easily  enough  to  recognise 
people.  At  present  she  couldn't  really  make  out 
anything  the  shop-girl  showed  her.  She  has 
successfully  concealed  from  the  man  I  saw  her 
with  that  she  resorts  in  private  to  a  pince-nez 
and  that  she  does  so  not  only  under  the  strictest 
orders  from  an  oculist,  but  because  literally  the 
poor  thing  can't  accomplish  without  such  help 
half  the  business  of  life.  Iffield  however  has 
suspected  something,  and  his  suspicions,  whether 
expressed  or  kept  to  himself,  have  put  him  on  the 
watch.  I  happened  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the 
movement  at  which  he  pounced  on  her  and 
caught  her  in  the  act." 

I  had  thought  it  all  out;  my  idea  explained 
many  things,  and  Dawling  turned  pale  as  he 
listened  to  me. 

"  Was  he  rough  with  her  ?  "  he  anxiously  asked. 

"How  can  I  tell  what  passed  between  them? 
I  fled  from  the  place." 

My  companion  stared  at  me  a  moment.  "Do 
you  mean  to  say  her  eyesight's  going  ?  " 

"  Heaven  forbid  !  In  that  case  how  could  she 
take  life  as  she  does?" 


GLASSES  129 

"How  does  she  take  life?  That's  the  ques 
tion  !  "  He  sat  there  bewilderedly  brooding ;  the 
tears  had  come  into  his  eyes ;  they  reminded  me 
of  those  I  had  seen  in  Flora's  the  day  I  risked 
my  inquiry.  The  question  he  had  asked  was  one 
that  to  my  own  satisfaction  I  was  ready  to  an 
swer,  but  I  hesitated  to  let  him  hear  as  yet  all 
that  my  reflections  had  suggested.  I  was  indeed 
privately  astonished  at  their  ingenuity.  For  the 
present  I  only  rejoined  that  it  struck  me  she  was 
playing  a  particular  game ;  at  which  he  went  on 
as  if  he  hadn't  heard  me,  suddenly  haunted  with 
a  fear,  lost  in  the  dark  possibility  I  had  opened 
up :  "  Do  you  mean  there's  a  danger  of  anything 
very  bad  ?  " 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  must  ask  her  oculist." 
"Who  in  the  world  is  her  oculist?" 
"I  haven't  a  conception.     But  we  mustn't  get 
too  excited.     My  impression  would  be  that  she 
has    only   to    observe   a   few   ordinary   rules,    to 
exercise  a  little  common  sense." 

Bawling  jumped  at  this.  "I  see  —  to  stick  to 
the  pince-nez." 

"  To  follow  to  the  letter  her  oculist's  prescrip 
tion,  whatever  it  is  and  at  whatever  cost  to  her 
prettiness.  It's  not  a  thing  to  be  trifled  with." 


130  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"  Upon  my  honour  it  shan't  be  trifled  with  !  " 
he  roundly  declared  ;  and  he  adjusted  himself  to 
his  position  again  as  if  we  had  quite  settled  the 
business.  After  a  considerable  interval,  while  I 
botched  away,  he  suddenly  said :  "  Did  they 
make  a  great  difference  ?  " 

"  A  great  difference  ?  •" 

"Those  things  she  had  put  on." 

"  Oh,  the  glasses —  in  her  beauty  ?  She  looked 
queer  of  course,  but  it  was  partly  because  one 
was  unaccustomed.  There  are  women  who  look 
charming  in  nippers.  What,  at  any  rate,  if  she 
does  look  queer  ?  She  must  be  mad  not  to  accept 
that  alternative." 

"  She  19  mad,"  said  Geoffrey  Dawling. 

"  Mad  to  refuse  you,  I  grant.  Besides,"  I  went 
on,  "the  pince-nez,  which  was  a  large  and  pecul 
iar  one,  was  all  awry  :  she  had  half  pulled  it  off, 
but  it  continued  to  stick,  and  she  was  crimson, 
she  was  angry." 

"  It  must  have  been  horrible  !  "  my  companion 
murmured. 

"It  was  horrible.  But  it's  still  more  horrible 
to  defy  all  warnings  ;  it's  still  more  horrible  to  be 
landed  in "  Without  saying  in  what  I  dis 
gustedly  shrugged  my  shoulders. 


GLASSES  131 

After  a  glance  at  me  Dawling  jerked  round. 
"  Then  you  do  believe  that  she  may  be  ?  " 

I  hesitated.  "  The  thing  would  be  to  make 
Tier  believe  it.  She  only  needs  a  good  scare." 

"  But  if  that  fellow  is  shocked  at  the  precau 
tions  she  does  take  ?  " 

"  Oh,  who  knows  ?  "  I  rejoined  with  small  sin 
cerity.  "  I  don't  suppose  Iffield  is  absolutely  a 
brute." 

"I  would  take  her  with  leather  blinders,  like 
a  shying  mare  !  "  cried  Geoffrey  Dawling. 

I  had  an  impression  that  Iffield  wouldn't,  but  I 
didn't  communicate  it,  for  I  wanted  to  pacify  my 
friend,  whom  I  had  discomposed  too  much  for  the 
purposes  of  my  sitting.  I  recollect  that  I  did 
some  good  work  that  morning,  but  it  also  comes 
back  to  me  that  before  we  separated  he  had  prac 
tically  revealed  to  me  that  my  anecdote,  connect 
ing  itself  in  his  mind  with  a  series  of  observations 
at  the  time  unconscious  and  unregistered,  had 
covered  with  light  the  subject  of  our  colloquy. 
He  had  had  a  formless  perception  of  some  secret 
that  drove  Miss  Saunt  to  subterfuges,  and  the 
more  he  thought  of  it  the  more  he  guessed  this 
secret  to  be  the  practice  of  making  believe  she 
saw  when  she  didn't  and  of  cleverly  keeping 


132  EMBARRASSMENTS 

people  from  finding  out  how  little  she  saw. 
When  one  patched  things  together  it  was  as 
tonishing  what  ground  they  covered.  Just  as  he 
was  going  away  he  asked  me  from  what  source, 
at  Folkestone,  the  horrid  tale  had  proceeded. 
When  I  had  given  him,  as  I  saw  no  reason  not 
to  do,  the  name  of  Mrs.  Meldrum,  he  exclaimed  : 
"  Oh,  I  know  all  about  her  ;  she's  a  friend  of 
some  friends  of  mine  !  "  At  this  I  remembered 
wilful  Betty  and  said  to  myself  that  I  knew  some 
one  who  would  probably  prove  more  wilful  still. 


VIII 

A  FEW  days  later  I  again  heard  Dawling  on 
my  stairs,  and  even  before  he  passed  my  threshold 
I  knew  he  had  something  to  tell  me. 

"  I've  been  down  to  Folkestone  —  it  was  neces 
sary  I  should  see  her  !  "  I  forget  whether  he  had 
come  straight  from  the  station  ;  he  was  at  any 
rate  out  of  breath  with  his  news,  which  it  took 
me  however  a  minute  to  interpret. 

"  You  mean  that  you've  been  with  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  to  ask  her  what  she  knows  and  how  she 
comes  to  know  it.  It  worked  upon  me  awfully 
—  I  mean  what  you  told  me."  He  made  a  visible 
effort  to  seem  quieter  than  he  was,  and  it  showed 
me  sufficiently  that  he  had  not  been  reassured.  I 
laid,  to  comfort  him  and  smiling  at  a  venture,  a 
friendly  hand  on  his  arm,  and  he  dropped  into  my 
eyes,  fixing  them  an  instant,  a  strange,  distended 
look  which  might  have  expressed  the  cold  clear- 
133 


134  EMBARRASSMENTS 

ness  of  all  that  was  to  come.  "  I  know  —  now  !  " 
he  said  with  an  emphasis  he  rarely  used. 

"  What  then  did  Mrs.  Meldrum  tell  you  ?  " 

"  Only  one  thing  that  signified,  for  she  has  no 
real  knowledge.  But  that  one  thing  was  every 
thing." 

"  What  is  it  then  ?  " 

"  Why,  that  she  can't  bear  the  sight  of  her." 
His  pronouns  required  some  arranging,  but  after 
I  had  successfully  dealt  with  them  I  replied 
that  I  knew  perfectly  Miss  Sauiit  had  a  trick  of 
turning  her  back  on  the  good  lady  of  Folkestone. 
But  what  did  that  prove?  "Have  you  never 
guessed  ?  I  guessed  as  soon  as  she  spoke  !  " 
Bawling  towered  over  me  in  dismal  triumph. 
It  was  the  first  time  in  our  acquaintance  that, 
intellectually  speaking,  this  had  occurred ;  but 
even  so  remarkable  an  incident  still  left  me  suffi 
ciently  at  sea  to  cause  him  to  continue  :  "  Why, 
the  effect  of  those  spectacles  ! " 

I  seemed  to  catch  the  tail  of  his  idea.  "  Mrs. 
Meldrum's?" 

"  They're  so  awfully  ugly  and  they  increase  so 
the  dear  woman's  ugliness."  This  remark  began 
to  flash  a  light,  and  when  he  quickly  added  "  She 
sees  herself,  she  sees  her  own  fate  !  "  my  response 


GLASSES  135 

was  so  immediate  that  I  had  almost  taken  the 
words  out  of  his  mouth.  While  I  tried  to  fix  this 
sudden  image  of  Flora's  face  glazed  in  and  cross- 
barred  even  as  Mrs.  Meldrum's  was  glazed  and 
barred,  he  went  on  to  assert  that  only  the  horror 
of  that  image,  looming  out  at  herself,  could  be  the 
reason  of  her  avoiding  such  a  monitress.  The 
fact  he  had  encountered  made  everything  hide 
ously  vivid  and  more  vivid  than  anything  else 
that  just  such  another  pair  of  goggles  was 
what  would  have  been  prescribed  to  Flora. 

"  I  see  —  I  see,"  I  presently  rejoined.  "  What 
would  become  of  Lord  Iffield  if  she  were  suddenly 
to  come  out  in  them?  What  indeed  would  be 
come  of  every  one,  what  would  become  of  every 
thing  ?  "  This  was  an  inquiry  that  Bawling  was 
evidently  unprepared  to  meet,  and  I  completed  it 
by  saying  at  last :  "  My  dear  fellow,  for  that  mat 
ter,  what  would  become  of  you  ?  " 

Once  more  he  turned  on  me  his  good  green 
eyes.  "  Oh,  I  shouldn't  mind  !  " 

The  tone  of  his  words  somehow  made  his  ugly 
face  beautiful,  and  I  felt  that  there  dated  from 
this  moment  in  my  heart  a  confirmed  affection  for 
him.  None  the  less,  at  the  same  time,  perversely 
and  rudely,  I  became  aware  of  a  certain  drollery 


136  EMBARRASSMENTS 

in  our  discussion  of  such  alternatives.  It  made 
me  laugh  out  and  say  to  him  while  I  laughed : 
"  You'd  take  her  even  with  those  things  of  Mrs. 
Meldrum's?" 

He  remained  mournfully  grave ;  I  could  see 
that  he  was  surprised  at  my  rude  mirth.  But  he 
summoned  back  a  vision  of  the  lady  at  Folkestone 
and  conscientiously  replied  :  "  Even  with  those 
things  of  Mrs.  Meldrum's."  I  begged  him  not 
to  think  my  laughter  in  bad  taste  :  it  was  only  a 
practical  recognition  of  the  fact  that  we  had  built 
a  monstrous  castle  in  the  air.  Didn't  he  see  on 
what  flimsy  ground  the  structure  rested?  The 
evidence  was  preposterously  small.  He  believed 
the  worst,  but  we  were  utterly  ignorant. 

"I  shall  find  out  the  truth,"  he  promptly  re 
plied. 

"  How  can  you  ?  If  you  question  her  you'll 
simply  drive  her  to  perjure  herself.  Wherein 
after  all  does  it  concern  you  to  know  the  truth  ? 
It's  the  girl's  own  affair." 

"  Then  why  did  you  tell  me  your  story  ?  " 

I  was  a  trifle  embarrassed.  "  To  warn  you  off," 
I  returned  smiling.  He  took  no  more  notice  of 
these  words  than  presently  to  remark  that  Lord 
Iflield  had  no  serious  intentions.  "Very  possi- 


GLASSES  137 

bly,"  I  said.  "  But  you  mustn't  speak  as  if  Lord 
Iffield  and  you  were  her  only  alternatives." 

Dawling  thought  a  moment.  "Wouldn't  the 
people  she  has  consulted  give  some  information  ? 
She  must  have  been  to  people.  How  else  can  she 
have  been  condemned  ?  " 

"  Condemned  to  what  ?  Condemned  to  perpet 
ual  nippers?  Of  course  she  has  consulted  some 
of  the  big  specialists,  but  she  has  done  it,  you 
may  be  sure,  in  the  most  clandestine  manner  ; 
and  even  if  it  were  supposable  that  they  would 
tell  you  anything  —  which  I  altogether  doubt  — 
you  would  have  great  difficulty  in  finding  out 
which  men  they  are.  Therefore  leave  it  alone  ; 
never  show  her  what  you  suspect." 

I  even,  before  he  quitted  me,  asked  him  to  prom 
ise  me  this.  "All  right,  I  promise,"  he  said 
gloomily  enough.  He  was  a  lover  who  could 
tacitly  grant  the  proposition  that  there  was  no 
limit  to  the  deceit  his  loved  one  was  ready  to 
practise  :  it  made  so  remarkably  little  difference. 
I  could  see  that  from  this  moment  he  would  be 
filled  with  a  passionate  pity  ever  so  little  qualified 
by  a  sense  of  the  girl's  fatuity  and  folly.  She 
was  always  accessible  to  him  —  that  I  knew;  for 
if  she  had  told  him  he  was  an  idiot  to  dream  she 


138  EMBARKASSMBNTS 

could  dream  of  him,  she  would  have  resented  the 
imputation  of  having  failed  to  make  it  clear  that 
she  would  always  be  glad  to  regard  him  as  a 
friend.  What  were  most  of  her  friends  —  what 
were  all  of  them  —  but  repudiated  idiots  ?  I  was 
perfectly  aware  that  in  her  conversations  and  con 
fidences  I  myself  for  instance  had  a  niche  in 
the  gallery.  As  regards  poor  Dawling  I  knew 
how  often  he  still  called  on  the  Hammond  Synges. 
It  was  not  there  but  under  the  wing  of  the  Floyd- 
Taylors  that  her  intimacy  with  Lord  Iffield  most 
flourished.  At  all  events  when  a  week  after  the 
visit  I  have  just  summarised  Flora's  name  was 
one  morning  brought  up  to  me  I  jumped  at  the 
conclusion  that  Dawling  had  been  with  her  and 
even  I  fear  briefly  entertained  the  thought  that 
he  had  broken  his  word. 


IX 


SHE  left  me,  after  she  had  been  introduced, 
in  no  suspense  about  her  present  motive ;  she 
was  on  the  contrary  in  a  visible  fever  to  en 
lighten  me ;  but  I  promptly  learned  that  for 
the  alarm  with  which  she  pitiably  panted  our 
young  man  was  not  accountable.  She  had  but 
one  thought  in  the  world,  and  that  thought  was 
for  Lord  Iffield.  I  had  the  strangest,  saddest 
scene  with  her,  and  if  it  did  me  no  other  good 
it  at  least  made  me  at  last  completely  under 
stand  why  insidiously,  from  the  first,  she  had 
struck  me  as  a  creature  of  tragedy.  In  showing 
me  the  whole  of  her  folly  it  lifted  the  curtain 
of  her  misery.  I  don't  know  how  much  she 
meant  to  tell  me  when  she  came  —  I  think  she 
had  had  plans  of  elaborate  misrepresentation  ;  at 
any  rate  she  found  it  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes 
the  simplest  way  to  break  down  and  sob,  to  be 
wretched  and  true.  When  she  had  once  begun 

139 


140  EMBARRASSMENTS 

to  let  herself  go  the  movement  took  her  off  her 
feet :  the  relief  of  it  was  like  the  cessation  of  a 
cramp.  She  shared  in  a  word  her  long  secret ; 
she  shifted  her  sharp  pain.  She  brought,  I  con 
fess,  tears  to  my  own  eyes,  tears  of  helpless 
tenderness  for  her  helpless  poverty.  Her  visit 
however  was  not  quite  so  memorable  in  itself 
as  in  some  of  its  consequences,  the  most  imme 
diate  of  which  was  that  I  went  that  afternoon 
to  see  Geoffrey  Dawling,  who  had  in  those  days 
rooms  in  Welbeck  Street,  where  I  presented  my 
self  at  an  hour  late  enough  to  warrant  the  sup 
position  that  he  might  have  come  in.  He  had 
not  come  in,  but  he  was  expected,  and  I  was 
invited  to  enter  and  wait  for  him  :  a  lady,  I 
was  informed,  was  already  in  his  sitting-room. 
I  hesitated,  a  little  at  a  loss  :  it  had  wildly 
coursed  through  my  brain  that  the  lady  was  per 
haps  Flora  Saunt.  But  when  I  asked  if  she  were 
young  and  remarkably  pretty  I  received  so  signifi 
cant  a  uNo,  sir!"  that  I  risked  an  advance  and 
after  a  minute  in  this  manner  found  myself,  to 
my  astonishment,  face  to  face  with  Mrs.  Meldrum. 
"  Oh,  you  dear  thing,"  she  exclaimed,  "  I'm 
delighted  to  see  you  :  you  spare  me  another 
compromising  demarche!  But  for  this  I  should 


GLASSES  141 

have  called  on  you  also.  Know  the  worst  at 
once  :  if  you  see  me  here  it's  at  least  deliberate 
—  it's  planned,  plotted,  shameless.  I  came  up 
on  purpose  to  see  him  ;  upon  my  word,  I'm  in 
love  with  him.  Why,  if  you  valued  my  peace 
of  mind,  did  you  let  him,  the  other  day  at 
Folkestone,  dawn  upon  my  delighted  eyes?  I 
took  there  in  half  an  hour  the  most  extraordinary 
fancy  to  him.  With  a  perfect  sense  of  every 
thing  that  can  be  urged  against  him,  I  find  him 
none  the  less  the  very  pearl  of  men.  However, 
I  haven't  come  up  to  declare  my  passion  —  I've 
come  to  bring  him  news  that  will  interest  him 
much  more.  Above  all  I've  come  to  urge  upon 
him  to  be  careful." 

"About  Flora  Saunt  ?  " 

"  About  what  he  says  and  does  :  he  must  be  as 
still  as  a  mouse  !  She's  at  last  really  engaged." 

"  But  it's  a  tremendous  secret  ?  "  I  was  moved 
to  merriment. 

"Precisely:  she  telegraphed  me  this  noon,  and 
spent  another  shilling  to  tell  me  that  not  a  creat 
ure  in  the  world  is  yet  to  know  it." 

"  She  had  better  have  spent  it  to  tell  you  that 
she  had  just  passed  an  hour  with  the  creature 
you  see  before  you." 


142  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"She  has  just  passed  an  hour  with  every  one 
in  the  place  !  "  Mrs.  Meldrum  cried.  "  They've 
vital  reasons,  she  wired,  for  it's  not  coming  out 
for  a  month.  Then  it  will  be  formally  announced, 
but  meanwhile  her  happiness  is  delirious.  I  dare 
say  Mr.  Bawling  already  knows,  and  he  may,  as 
it's  nearly  seven  o'clock,  have  jumped  off  London 
Bridge  ;  but  an  effect  of  the  talk  I  had  with  him 
the  other  day  was  to  make  me,  on  receipt  of  my 
telegram,  feel  it  to  be  my  duty  to  warn  him  in 
person  against  taking  action,  as  it  were,  on  the 
horrid  certitude  which  I  could  see  he  carried 
away  with  him.  I  had  added  somehow  to  that 
certitude.  He  told  me  what  you  had  told  him 
you  had  seen  in  your  shop." 

Mrs.  Meldrum,  I  perceived,  had  come  to  Wei- 
beck  Street  on  an  errand  identical  with  my  own 
• — a  circumstance  indicating  her  rare  sagacity, 
inasmuch  as  her  ground  for  undertaking  it  was  a 
very  different  thing  from  what  Flora's  wonderful 
visit  had  made  of  mine.  I  remarked  to  her  that 
what  I  had  seen  in  the  shop  was  sufficiently  strik 
ing,  but  that  I  had  seen  a  great  deal  more  that 
morning  in  my  studio.  uln  short,"  I  said,  "I've 
seen  everything." 

She  was  mystified.      "  Everything  ?  " 


GLASSES  143 

"  The  poor  creature  is  under  the  darkest  of 
clouds.  Oh,  she  came  to  triumph,  but  she  re 
mained  to  talk  something  approaching  to  sense  ! 
She  put  herself  completely  in  my  hands  —  she 
does  me  the  honour  to  intimate  that  of  all  her 
friends  I'm  the  most  disinterested.  After  she 
had  announced  to  me  that  Lord  Iffield  was  bound 
hands  and  feet  and  that  for  the  present  I  was 
absolutely  the  only  person  in  the  secret,  she 
arrived  at  her  real  business.  She  had  had  a  sus 
picion  of  me  ever  since  the  day,  at  Folkestone,  I 
asked  her  for  the  truth  about  her  eyes.  The  truth 
is  what  you  and  I  both  guessed.  She  has  no  end 
of  a  danger  hanging  over  her." 

"  But  from  what  cause  ?  I,  who  by  God's 
mercy  have  kept  mine,  know  everything  that  can 
be  known  about  eyes,"  said  Mrs.  Meldrum. 

"  She  might  have  kept  hers  if  she  had  profited 
by  God's  mercy,  if  she  had  done  in  time,  done 
years  ago,  what  was  imperatively  ordered  her ; 
if  she  hadn't  in  fine  been  cursed  with  the  loveli 
ness  that  was  to  make  her  behaviour  a  thing  of 
fable.  She  may  keep  them  still  if  she'll  sacrifice 
• —  and  after  all  so  little  —  that  purely  superficial 
charm.  She  must  do  as  you've  done ;  she  must 
wear,  dear  lady,  what  you  wear  I  " 


144  EMBARRASSMENTS 

What  my  companion  wore  glittered  for  the 
moment  like  a  melon-frame  in  August.  "  Heaven 
forgive  her  —  now  I  understand!"  She  turned 
pale. 

But  I  wasn't  afraid  of  the  effect  on  her  good 
nature  of  her  thus  seeing,  through  her  great 
goggles,  why  it  had  always  been  that  Flora  held 
her  at  such  a  distance.  "I  can't  tell  you,"  I 
said,  "from  what  special  affection,  what  state 
of  the  eye,  her  danger  proceeds:  that's  the  one 
thing  she  succeeded  this  morning  in  keeping  from 
me.  She  knows  it  herself  perfectly ;  she  has 
had  the  best  advice  in  Europe.  '  It's  a  thing 
that's  awful,  simply  awful'  —  that  was  the  only 
account  she  would  give  me.  Year  before  last, 
while  she  was  at  Boulogne,  she  went  for  three 
days  with  Mrs.  Floyd-Taylor  to  Paris.  She 
there  surreptitiously  consulted  the  greatest  man 
—  even  Mrs.  Floyd-Taylor  doesn't  know.  Last 
autumn,  in  Germany,  she  did  the  same.  '  First 
put  on  certain  special  spectacles  with  a  straight 
bar  in  the  middle  :  then  we'll  talk '  —  that's 
practically  what  they  say.  What  she  says  is 
that  she'll  put  on  anything  in  nature  when  she's 
married,  but  that  she  must  get  married  first. 
She  has  always  meant  to  do  everything  as  soon 


GLASSES  145 

as  she's  married.  Then  and  then  only  she'll  be 
safe.  How  will  any  one  ever  look  at  her  if  she 
makes  herself  a  fright?  How  could  she  ever 
have  got  engaged  if  she  had  made  herself  a  fright 
from  the  first?  It's  no  use  to  insist  that  with 
her  beauty  she  can  never  be  a  fright.  She  said 
to  me  this  morning,  poor  girl,  the  most  character 
istic,  the  most  harrowing  things.  '  My  face  is 
all  I  have  —  and  such  a  face  !  I  knew  from  the 
first  I  could  do  anything  with  it.  But  I  needed 
it  all  —  I  need  it  still,  every  exquisite  inch  of  it. 
It  isn't  as  if  I  had  a  figure  or  anything  else.  Oh, 
if  God  had  only  given  me  a  figure  too,  I  don't 
say!  Yes,  with  a  figure,  a  really  good  one,  like 
Fanny  Floyd-Taylor's,  who's  hideous,  I'd  have 
risked  plain  glasses.  Que  voulez-vous?  No  one 
is  perfect.'  She  says  she  still  has  money  left, 
but  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it.  She  has  been 
speculating  on  her  impunity,  on  the  idea  that  her 
danger  would  hold  off :  she  has  literally  been 
running  a  race  with  it.  Her  theory  has  been, 
as  you  from  the  first  so  clearly  saw,  that  she'd 
get  in  ahead.  She  swears  to  me  that  though  the 
'bar'  is  too  cruel  she  wears  when  she's  alone 
what  she  has  been  ordered  to  wear.  But  when 
the  deuce  is  she  alone  ?  It's  herself  of  course 


146  EMBARRASSMENTS 

that  she  has  swindled  worst :  she  has  put  herself 
off,  so  insanely  that  even  her  vanity  but  half  ac 
counts  for  it,  with  little  inadequate  concessions, 
little  false  measures  and  preposterous  evasions 
and  childish  hopes.  Her  great  terror  is  now  that 
Iffield,  who  already  has  suspicions,  who  has  found 
out  her  pince-nez  but  whom  she  has  beguiled  with 
some  unblushing  hocus-pocus,  may  discover  the 
dreadful  facts ;  and  the  essence  of  what  she 
wanted  this  morning  was  in  that  interest  to 
square  me,  to  get  me  to  deny  indignantly  and 
authoritatively  (for  isn't  she  my  'favourite  sit 
ter  '  ? )  that  she  has  anything  whatever  the  matter 
with  any  part  of  her.  She  sobbed,  she  '  went  on/ 
she  entreated  ;  after  we  got  talking  her  extraordi 
nary  nerve  left  her  and  she  showed  me  what  she 
has  been  through  —  showed  me  also  all  her  terror 
of  the  harm  I  could  do  her.  c  Wait  till  I'm  mar 
ried  !  wait  till  I'm  married  ! '  She  took  hold 
of  me,  she  almost  sank  on  her  knees.  It  seems 
to  me  highly  immoral,  one's  participation  in  her 
fraud ;  but  there's  no  doubt  that  she  must  be 
married  :  I  don't  know  what  I  don't  see  behind 
it !  Therefore,"  I  wound  up,  "  Dawling  must 
keep  his  hands  off." 

Mrs.  Meldrum  had  held  her  breath ;    she  ex- 


GLASSES  147 

haled  a  long  moan.  "  Well,  that's  exactly  what 
I  came  here  to  tell  him." 

"Then  here  he  is."  Our  unconscious  host 
had  just  opened  the  door.  Immensely  startled 
at  finding  us  he  turned  a  frightened  look  from 
one  to  the  other,  as  if  to  guess  what  disaster 
we  were  there  to  announce  or  avert. 

Mrs.  Meldrum,  on  the  spot,  was  all  gaiety. 
"I've  come  to  return  your  sweet  visit.  Ah," 
she  laughed,  "I  mean  to  keep  up  the  acquaint 
ance  !  " 

"Do — do,"  he  murmured  mechanically  and  ab 
sently,  continuing  to  look  at  us.  Then  abruptly 
he  broke  out :  "  He's  going  to  marry  her." 

I  was  surprised.     "  You  already  know?  " 

He  had  had  in  his  hand  an  evening  news 
paper;  he  tossed  it  down  on  the  table.  "It's 
in  that." 

"Published  —  already?"  I  was  still  more  sur 
prised. 

"  Oh,  Flora  can't  keep  a  secret !  "  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum  humorously  declared.  She  went  up  to 
poor  Dawling  and  laid  a  motherly  hand  upon 
him.  "It's  all  right  —  it's  just  as  it  ought  to 
be:  don't  think  about  her  ever  any  more." 
Then  as  he  met  this  adjuration  with  a  dismal 


148  EMBARRASSMENTS 

stare  in  which  the  thought  of  her  was  as  ab 
normally  vivid  as  the  colour  of  the  pupil,  the 
excellent  woman  put  up  her  funny  face  and 
tenderly  kissed  him  on  the  cheek. 


I  HAVE  spoken  of  these  reminiscences  as  of  a 
row  of  coloured  beads,  and  I  confess  that  as  I 
continue  to  straighten  out  my  chaplet  I  am  rather 
proud  of  the  comparison.  The  beads  are  all 
there,  as  I  said  —  they  slip  along  the  string  in 
their  small,  smooth  roundness.  Geoffrey  Daw- 
ling  accepted  like  a  gentleman  the  event  his 
evening  paper  had  proclaimed;  in  view  of  which 
I  snatched  a  moment  to  murmur  him  a  hint  to 
offer  Mrs.  Meldrum  his  hand.  He  returned  me 
a  heavy  head-shake,  and  I  judged  that  marriage 
would  henceforth  strike  him  very  much  as  the 
traffic  of  the  street  may  strike  some  poor  incur 
able  at  the  window  of  an  hospital.  Circumstances 
arising  at  this  time  promptly  led  to  my  making 
an  absence  from  England,  and  circumstances 
already  existing  offered  him  a  solid  basis  for 
similar  action.  He  had  after  all  the  usual  re 
source  of  a  Briton  —  he  could  take  to  his  boats. 

149 


150  EMBARRASSMENTS 

He  started  on  a  journey  round  the  globe,  and  I 
was  left  with  nothing  but  my  inference  as  to 
what  might  have  happened.  Later  observation 
however  only  confirmed  my  belief  that  if  at  any 
time  during  the  couple  of  months  that  followed 
Flora  Saunt's  brilliant  engagement  he  had  made 
up,  as  they  say,  to  the  good  lady  of  Folkestone, 
that  good  lady  would  not  have  pushed  him  over 
the  cliff.  Strange  as  she  was  to  behold  I  knew 
of  cases  in  which  she  had  been  obliged  to  admin 
ister  that  shove.  I  went  to  New  York  to  paint  a 
couple  of  portraits ;  but  I  found,  once  on  the  spot, 
that  I  had  counted  without  Chicago,  where  I  was 
invited  to  blot  out  this  harsh  discrimination  by 
the  production  of  no  less  than  ten.  I  spent  a 
year  in  America  and  should  probably  have  spent 
a  second  had  I  not  been  summoned  back  to  Eng 
land  by  alarming  news  from  my  mother.  Her 
strength  had  failed,  and  as  soon  as  I  reached 
London  I  hurried  down  to  Folkestone,  arriving 
just  at  the  moment  to  offer  a  welcome  to  some 
slight  symptom  of  a  rally.  She  had  been  much 
worse,  but  she  was  now  a  little  better  ;  and 
though  I  found  nothing  but  satisfaction  in  hav 
ing  come  to  her  I  saw  after  a  few  hours  that  my 
London  studio,  where  arrears  of  work  had  already 


GLASSES  151 

met  me,  would  be  my  place  to  await  whatever 
might  next  occur.  Before  returning  to  town 
however  I  had  every  reason  to  sally  forth  in 
search  of  Mrs.  Meldrum,  from  whom,  in  so  many 
months,  I  had  not  had  a  line,  and  my  view  of 
whom,  with  the  adjacent  objects,  as  I  had  left 
them,  had  been  intercepted  by  a  luxuriant  fore 
ground. 

Before  I  had  gained  her  house  I  met  her,  as  I 
supposed,  coming  toward  me  across  the  down, 
greeting  me  from  afar  with  the  familiar  twinkle 
of  her  great  vitreous  badge ;  and  as  it  was  late  in 
the  autumn  and  the  esplanade  was  a  blank  I  was 
free  to  acknowledge  this  signal  by  cutting  a  caper 
on  the  grass.  My  enthusiasm  dropped  indeed 
the  next  moment,  for  it  had  taken  me  but  a  few 
seconds  to  perceive  that  the  person  thus  assaulted 
had  by  no  means  the  figure  of  my  military  friend. 
I  felt  a  shock  much  greater  than  any  I  should 
have  thought  possible  as  on  this  person's  drawing 
near  I  identified  her  as  poor  little  Flora  Saunt. 
At  what  moment  Flora  had  recognised  me  be 
longed  to  an  order  of  mysteries  over  which,  it 
quickly  came  home  to  me,  one  would  never  lin 
ger  again :  I  could  intensely  reflect  that  once  we 
were  face  to  face  it  chiefly  mattered  that  I  should 


152  EMBAREASSMENTS 

succeed  in  looking  still  more  intensely  unaston- 
ished.  All  I  saw  at  first  was  the  big  gold  bar 
crossing  each  of  her  lenses,  over  which  some 
thing  convex  and  grotesque,  like  the  eyes  of  a 
large  insect,  something  that  now  represented  her 
whole  personality,  seemed,  as  out  of  the  orifice 
of  a  prison,  to  strain  forward  and  press.  The 
face  had  shrunk  away :  it  looked  smaller,  appeared 
even  to  look  plain ;  it  was  at  all  events,  so  far  as 
the  effect  on  a  spectator  was  concerned,  wholly 
sacrificed  to  this  huge  apparatus  of  sight.  There 
was  no  smile  in  it,  and  she  made  no  motion  to 
take  my  offered  hand. 

"  I  had  no  idea  you  were  down  here ! "  I  ex 
claimed  ;  and  I  wondered  whether  she  didn't 
know  me  at  all  or  knew  me  only  by  my  voice. 

"You  thought  I  was  Mrs.  Meldrum,"  she  very 
quietly  remarked. 

It  was  the  quietness  itself  that  made  me  feel 
the  necessity  of  an  answer  almost  violently  gay. 
"Oh  yes,"  I  laughed,  "you  have  a  tremendous 
deal  in  common  with  Mrs.  Meldrum!  I've  just 
returned  to  England  after  a  long  absence  and  I'm 
on  my  way  to  see  her.  Won't  you  come  with 
me  ?  "  It  struck  me  that  her  old  reason  for  keep 
ing  clear  of  our  friend  was  well  disposed  of  now. 


GLASSES  153 

"I've  just  left  her  ;  I'm  staying  with  her." 
She  stood  solemnly  fixing  me  with  her  goggles. 
"Would  you  like  to  paint  me  now?"  she  asked. 
She  seemed  to  speak,  with  intense  gravity,  from 
behind  a  mask  or  a  cage. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  treat  the  ques 
tion  with  the  same  exuberance.  "It  would  be  a 
fascinating  little  artistic  problem !  "  That  some 
thing  was  wrong  it  was  not  difficult  to  perceive ; 
but  a  good  deal  more  than  met  the  eye  might  be 
presumed  to  be  wrong  if  Flora  was  under  Mrs. 
Meldrum's  roof.  I  had  not  for  a  year  had  much 
time  to  think  of  her,  but  my  imagination  had  had 
sufficient  warrant  for  lodging  her  in  more  gilded 
halls.  One  of  the  last  things  I  had  heard  before 
leaving  England  was  that  in  commemoration  of 
the  new  relationship  she  had  gone  to  stay  with 
Lady  Considine.  This  had  made  me  take  every 
thing  else  for  granted,  and  the  noisy  American 
world  had  deafened  my  ears  to  possible  contradic 
tions.  Her  spectacles  were  at  present  a  direct 
contradiction;  they  seemed  a  negation  not  only 
of  new  relationships  but  of  every  old  one  as  well. 
I  remember  nevertheless  that  when  after  a  mo 
ment  she  walked  beside  me  on  the  grass  I  found 
myself  nervously  hoping  she  wouldn't  as  yet  at 


154  EMBAKBASSMENTS 

any  rate  tell  me  anything  very  dreadful ;  so  that 
to  stave  off  this  danger  I  harried  her  with  ques 
tions  about  Mrs.  Meldrum  and,  without  waiting 
for  replies,  became  profuse  on  the  subject  of  my 
own  doings.  My  companion  was  completely 
silent,  and  I  felt  both  as  if  she  were  watching 
my  nervousness  with  a  sort  of  sinister  irony  and 
as  if  I  were  talking  to  some  different,  strange 
person.  Flora  plain  and  obscure  and  soundless 
was  no  Flora  at  all.  At  Mrs.  Meldrum's  door  she 
turned  off  with  the  observation  that  as  there  was 
certainly  a  great  deal  I  should  have  to  say  to  our 
friend  she  had  better  not  go  in  with  me.  I 
looked  at  her  again  —  I  had  been  keeping  my 
eyes  away  from  her  —  but  only  to  meet  her  mag 
nified  stare.  I  greatly  desired  in  truth  to  see 
Mrs.  Meldrum  alone,  but  there  was  something  so 
pitiful  in  the  girl's  predicament  that  I  hesitated 
to  fall  in  with  this  idea  of  dropping  her.  Yet 
one  couldn't  express  a  compassion  without  seem 
ing  to  take  too  much  wretchedness  for  granted. 
I  reflected  that  I  must  really  figure  to  her  as  a 
fool,  which  was  an  entertainment  I  had  never  ex 
pected  to  give  her.  It  rolled  over  me  there  for 
the  first  time  —  it  has  come  back  to  me  since  — 
that  there  is,  strangely,  in  very  deep  misfortune 


GLASSES  155 

a  dignity  finer  even  than  in  the  most  inveterate 
habit  of  being  all  right.  I  couldn't  have  to  her 
the  manner  of  treating  it  as  a  mere  detail  that  I 
was  face  to  face  with  a  part  of  what,  at  our  last 
meeting,  we  had  had  such  a  scene  about;  but 
while  I  was  trying  to  think  of  some  manner  that 
I  could  have  she  said  quite  colourlessly,  yet  some 
how  as  if  she  might  never  see  me  again :  "  Good 
bye.  I'm  going  to  take  my  walk." 

"All  alone?" 

She  looked  round  the  great  bleak  cliff-top. 
"With  whom  should  I  go?  Besides,  I  like  to  be 
alone  —  for  the  present." 

This  gave  me  the  glimmer  of  a  vision  that  she 
regarded  her  disfigurement  as  temporary,  and  the 
confidence  came  to  me  that  she  would  never,  for 
her  happiness,  cease  to  be  a  creature  of  illusions. 
It  enabled  me  to  exclaim,  smiling  brightly  and 
feeling  indeed  idiotic :  "  Oh,  I  shall  see  you 
again!  But  I  hope  you'll  have  a  very  pleasant 
walk." 

"All  my  walks  are  very  pleasant,  thank  you 
—  they  do  me  such  a  lot  of  good."  She  was  as 
quiet  as  a  mouse,  and  her  words  seemed  to  me 
stupendous  in  their  wisdom.  "I  take  several  a 
day,"  she  continued.  She  might  have  been  an 


156  EMBABBASSMENTS 

ancient  woman  responding  with  humility  at  the 
church  door  to  the  patronage  of  the  parson. 
"  The  more  I  take  the  better  I  feel.  I'm  ordered 
by  the  doctors  to  keep  all  the  while  in  the  air  and 
go  in  for  plenty  of  exercise.  It  keeps  up  my 
general  health,  you  know,  and  if  that  goes  on 
improving  as  it  has  lately  done  everything  will 
soon  be  all  right.  All  that  was  the  matter  with 
me  before  —  and  always ;  it  was  too  reckless !  — 
was  that  I  neglected  my  general  health.  It  acts 
directly  on  the  state  of  the  particular  organ.  So 
I'm  going  three  miles." 

I  grinned  at  her  from  the  doorstep  while  Mrs. 
Meldrum's  maid  stood  there  to  admit  me.  "  Oh, 
I'm  so  glad,"  I  said,  looking  at  her  as  she  paced 
away  with  the  pretty  flutter  she  had  kept  and 
remembering  the  day  when,  while  she  rejoined 
Lord  Iffield,  I  had  indulged  in  the  same  observa 
tion.  Her  air  of  assurance  was  on  this  occasion 
not  less  than  it  had  been  on  that ;  but  I  recalled 
that  she  had  then  struck  me  as  marching  off  to 
her  doom.  Was  she  really  now  marching  away 
from  it? 


XI 


As  soon  as  I  saw  Mrs.  Meldrum  I  broke  out  to 
her.  "Is  there  anything  in  it?  Is  her  general 
health ?" 

Mrs.  Meldrum  interrupted  me  with  her  great 
amused  blare.  "  You've  already  seen  her  and  she 
has  told  you  her  wondrous  tale ?  What's  'in  it ' 
is  what  has  been  in  everything  she  has  ever  done 
—  the  most  comical,  tragical  belief  in  herself. 
She  thinks  she's  doing  a  'cure.' ' 

"And  what  does  her  husband  think?" 

"  Her  husband  ?    What  husband  ?  " 

"Hasn't  she  then  married  Lord  Iffield?" 

"  Vous-en-etes  Id?"  cried  my  hostess.  " He 
behaved  like  a  regular  beast." 

"How  should  I  know?  You  never  wrote  to 
me." 

Mrs.  Meldrum  hesitated,  covering  me  with 
what  poor  Flora  called  the  particular  organ. 
"No,  I  didn't  write  to  you;  and  I  abstained  on 

157 


158  EMBARRASSMENTS 

purpose.  If  I  didn't  I  thought  you  mightn't, 
over  there,  hear  what  had  happened.  If  you 
should  hear  I  was  afraid  you  would  stir  up  Mr. 
Dawling." 

"Stir  him  up?" 

"Urge  him  to  fly  to  the  rescue;  write  out  to 
him  that  there  was  another  chance  for  him." 

"I  wouldn't  have  done  it,"  I  said. 

"Well,"  Mrs.  Meldrum  replied,  "it  was  not 
my  business  to  give  you  an  opportunity." 

"In  short  you  were  afraid  of  it." 

Again  she  hesitated  and  though  it  may  have 
been  only  my  fancy  I  thought  she  considerably 
reddened.  At  all  events  she  laughed  out.  Then 
"I  was  afraid  of  it!  "  she  very  honestly  answered. 

"  But  doesn't  he  know  ?  Has  he  given  no  sign  ?  " 

"  Every  sign  in  life  —  he  came  straight  back  to 
her.  He  did  everything  to  get  her  to  listen  to 
him;  but  she  hasn't  the  smallest  idea  of  it." 

"Has  he  seen  her  as  she  is  now?"  I  presently 
and  just  a  trifle  awkwardly  inquired. 

"  Indeed  he  has,  and  borne  it  like  a  hero.  He 
told  me  all  about  it." 

"How  much  you've  all  been  through!  "  I  vent 
ured  to  ejaculate.  "Then  what  has  become  of 
him?" 


GLASSES  159 

"He's  at  home  in  Hampshire.  He  has  got 
back  his  old  place  and  I  believe  by  this  time  his 
old  sisters.  It's  not  half  a  bad  little  place." 

"  Yet  its  attractions  say  nothing  to  Flora  ?  " 

"Oh,  Flora's  by  no  means  on  her  back!"  my 
interlocutress  laughed. 

"She's  not  on  her  back  because  she's  on  yours. 
Have  you  got  her  for  the  rest  of  your  life  ?  " 

Once  more  my  hostess  genially  glared  at  me. 
"Did  she  tell  you  how  much  the  Hammond 
Synges  have  kindly  left  her  to  live  on?  Not 
quite  eighty  pounds  a  year." 

"That's  a  good  deal,  but  it  won't  pay  the 
oculist.  What  was  it  that  at  last  induced  her  to 
submit  to  him?" 

"Her  general  collapse  after  that  brute  of  an 
Iffield's  rupture.  She  cried  her  eyes  out  —  she 
passed  through  a  horror  of  black  darkness.  Then 
came  a  gleam  of  light,  and  the  light  appears 
to  have  broadened.  She  went  into  goggles 
as  repentant  Magdalens  go  into  the  Catholic 
Church." 

"Yet  you  don't  think  she'll  be  saved?" 

''''She  thinks  she  will  —  that's  all  I  can  tell 
you.  There's  no  doubt  that  when  once  she 
brought  herself  to  accept  her  real  remedy,  as  she 


160  EMBARRASSMENTS 

calls  it,  she  began  to  enjoy  a  relief  that  she  had 
never  known.  That  feeling,  very  new  and  in 
spite  of  what  she  pays  for  it  most  refreshing,  has 
given  her  something  to  hold  on  by,  begotten  in 
her  foolish  little  mind  a  belief  that,  as  she  says, 
she's  on  the  mend  and  that  in  the  course  of  time, 
if  she  leads  a  tremendously  healthy  life,  she'll  be 
able  to  take  off  her  muzzle  and  become  as  danger 
ous  again  as  ever.  It  keeps  her  going." 

"And  what  keeps  you  ?  You're  good  until  the 
parties  begin  again." 

"Oh,  she  doesn't  object  to  me  now!"  smiled 
Mrs.  Meldrum.  "I'm  going  to  take  her  abroad; 
we  shall  be  a  pretty  pair."  I  was  struck  with 
this  energy  and  after  a  moment  I  inquired  the 
reason  of  it.  "It's  to  divert  her  mind,"  my 
friend  replied,  reddening  again,  I  thought,  a 
little.  "We  shall  go  next  week:  I've  only 
waited,  to  start,  to  see  how  your  mother  would 
be."  I  expressed  to  her  hereupon  my  sense  of 
her  extraordinary  merit  and  also  that  of  the 
inconceivability  of  Flora's  fancying  herself  still 
in  a  situation  not  to  jump  at  the  chance  of  marry 
ing  a  man  like  Bawling.  "She  says  he's  too 
ugly;  she  says  he's  too  dreary;  she  says  in  fact 
he's  'nobody,'"  Mrs.  Meldrum  pursued.  "She 


GLASSES  161 

says  above  all  that  he's  not  'her  own  sort.'  She 
doesn't  deny  that  he's  good,  but  she  insists  on 
the  fact  that  he's  grotesque.  He's  quite  the  last 
person  she  would  ever  dream  of."  I  was  almost 
disposed  on  hearing  this  to  protest  that  if  the  girl 
had  so  little  proper  feeling  her  noble  suitor  had 
perhaps  served  her  right;  but  after  a  while  my 
curiosity  as  to  just  how  her  noble  suitor  had 
served  her  got  the  better  of  that  emotion,  and  I 
asked  a  question  or  two  which  led  my  companion 
again  to  apply  to  him  the  invidious  epithet  I 
have  already  quoted.  What  had  happened  was 
simply  that  Flora  had  at  the  eleventh  hour 
broken  down  in  the  attempt  to  put  him  off  with 
an  uncandid  account  of  her  infirmity  and  that  his 
lordship's  interest  in  her  had  not  been  proof 
against  the  discovery  of  the  way  she  had  prac 
tised  on  him.  Her  dissimulation,  he  was  obliged 
to  perceive,  had  been  infernally  deep.  The 
future  in  short  assumed  a  new  complexion  for 
him  when  looked  at  through  the  grim  glasses  of 
a  bride  who,  as  he  had  said  to  some  one,  couldn't 
really,  when  you  came  to  find  out,  see  her  hand 
before  her  face.  He  had  conducted  himself  like 
any  other  jockeyed  customer  —  he  had  returned 
the  animal  as  unsound.  He  had  backed  out  in 


162  EMBARRASSMENTS 

his  own  way,  giving  the  business,  by  some  sharp 
shuffle,  such  a  turn  as  to  make  the  rupture 
ostensibly  Flora's,  but  he  had  none  the  less 
remorselessly  and  basely  backed  out.  He  had 
cared  for  her  lovely  face,  cared  for  it  in  the 
amused  and  haunted  way  it  had  been  her  poor 
little  delusive  gift  to  make  men  care;  and  her 
lovely  face,  damn  it,  with  the  monstrous  gear  she 
had  begun  to  rig  upon  it,  was  just  what  had  let 
him  in.  He  had  in  the  judgment  of  his  family 
done  everything  that  could  be  expected  of  him; 
he  had  made  —  Mrs.  Meldrum  had  herself  seen 
the  letter  —  a  "handsome"  offer  of  pecuniary 
compensation.  Oh,  if  Flora,  with  her  incredible 
buoyancy,  was  in  a  manner  on  her  feet  again 
now,  it  was  not  that  she  had  not  for  weeks  and 
weeks  been  prone  in  the  dust.  Strange  were  the 
humiliations,  the  prostrations  it  was  given  to 
some  natures  to  survive.  That  Flora  had  sur 
vived  was  perhaps  after  all  a  sort  of  sign  that  she 
was  reserved  for  some  final  mercy.  "  But  she  has 
been  in  the  abysses  at  any  rate,"  said  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum,  "and  I  really  don't  think  I  can  tell  you 
what  pulled  her  through." 

"I  think  I  can  tell  you,"  I  said.     "What  in 
the  world  but  Mrs.  Meldrum?" 


GLASSES  163 

At  the  end  of  an  hour  Flora  had  not  come  in, 
and  I  was  obliged  to  announce  that  I  should  have 
but  time  to  reach  the  station,  where,  in  charge  of 
my  mother's  servant,  I  was  to  find  my  luggage. 
Mrs.  Meldrum  put  before  me  the  question  of 
waiting  till  a  later  train,  so  as  not  to  lose  our 
young  lady;  but  I  confess  I  gave  this  alternative 
a  consideration  less  profound  than  I  pretended. 
Somehow  I  didn't  care  if  I  did  lose  our  young 
lady.  Now  that  I  knew  the  worst  that  had  be 
fallen  her  it  struck  me  still  less  as  possible  to 
meet  her  on  the  ground  of  condolence ;  and  with 
the  melancholy  aspect  she  wore  to  me  what  other 
ground  was  left?  I  lost  her,  but  I  caught  my 
train.  In  truth  she  was  so  changed  that  one 
hated  to  see  it;  and  now  that  she  was  in  chari 
table  hands  one  didn't  feel  compelled  to  make 
great  efforts.  I  had  studied  her  face  for  a  par 
ticular  beauty;  I  had  lived  with  that  beauty  and 
reproduced  it;  but  I  knew  what  belonged  to  my 
trade  well  enough  to  be  sure  it  was  gone  for  ever. 


XII 


I  WAS  soon  called  back  to  Folkestone  ;  but 
Mrs.  Meldrum  and  her  young  friend  had  already 
left  England,  finding  to  that  end  every  conven 
ience  on  the  spot  and  not  having  had  to  come  up 
to  town.  My  thoughts  however  were  so  painfully 
engaged  there  that  I  should  in  any  case  have  had 
little  attention  for  them  :  the  event  occurred  that 
was  to  bring  my  series  of  visits  to  a  close.  When 
this  high  tide  had  ebbed  I  returned  to  America 
and  to  my  interrupted  work,  which  had  opened 
out  on  such  a  scale  that,  with  a  deep  plunge  into 
a  great  chance,  I  was  three  good  years  in  rising 
again  to  the  surface.  There  are  nymphs  and 
naiads  moreover  in  the  American  depths  :  they 
may  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  duration 
of  my  dive.  I  mention  them  to  account  for  a 
grave  misdemeanour  —  the  fact  that  after  the  first 
year  I  rudely  neglected  Mrs.  Meldrum.  She  had 
written  to  me  from  Florence  after  my  mother's 
164 


GLASSES  165 

death  and  had  mentioned  in  a  postscript  that  in 
our  young  lady's  calculations  the  lowest  numbers 
were  now  Italian  counts.  This  was  a  good  omen, 
and  if  in  subsequent  letters  there  was  no  news  of 
a  sequel  I  was  content  to  accept  small  things  and 
to  believe  that  grave  tidings,  should  there  be  any, 
would  come  to  me  in  due  course.  The  gravity 
of  what  might  happen  to  a  featherweight  became 
indeed  with  time  and  distance  less  appreciable, 
and  I  was  not  without  an  impression  that  Mrs. 
Meldrum,  whose  sense  of  proportion  was  not  the 
least  of  her  merits,  had  no  idea  of  boring  the 
world  with  the  ups  and  downs  of  her  pensioner. 
The  poor  girl  grew  dusky  and  dim,  a  small  fitful 
memory,  a  regret  tempered  by  the  comfortable 
consciousness  of  how  kind  Mrs.  Meldrum  would 
always  be  to  her.  I  was  professionally  more  pre 
occupied  than  I  had  ever  been,  and  I  had  swarms 
of  pretty  faces  in  my  eyes  and  a  chorus  of  high 
voices  in  my  ears.  Geoffrey  Bawling  had  on 
his  return  to  England  written  me  two  or  three 
letters  :  his  last  information  had  been  that  he  was 
going  into  the  figures  of  rural  illiteracy.  I  was 
delighted  to  receive  it  and  had  no  doubt  that  if 
he  should  go  into  figures  they  would,  as  they  are 
said  to  be  able  to  prove  anything,  prove  at  least 


166  EMBARRASSMENTS 

that  my  advice  was  sound  and  that  he  had  wasted 
time  enough.  This  quickened  on  my  part  an 
other  hope,  a  hope  suggested  by  some  roundabout 
rumour  —  I  forget  how  it  reached  me  —  that  he 
was  engaged  to  a  girl  down  in  Hampshire.  He 
turned  out  not  to  be,  but  I  felt  sure  that  if  only 
he  went  into  figures  deep  enough  he  would 
become,  among  the  girls  down  in  Hampshire  or 
elsewhere,  one  of  those  numerous  prizes  of  battle 
whose  defences  are  practically  not  on  the  scale  of 
their  provocations.  I  nursed  in  short  the  thought 
that  it  was  probably  open  to  him  to  become  one 
of  the  types  as  to  which,  as  the  years  go  on,  frivo 
lous  and  superficial  spectators  lose  themselves  in 
the  wonder  that  they  ever  succeeded  in  winning 
even  the  least  winsome  mates.  He  never  alluded 
to  Flora  Saunt ;  and  there  was  in  his  silence 
about  her,  quite  as  in  Mrs.  Meldrum's,  an  element 
of  instinctive  tact,  a  brief  implication  that  if  you 
didn't  happen  to  have  been  in  love  with  her  she 
was  not  an  inevitable  topic. 

Within  a  week  after  my  return  to  London  I 
went  to  the  opera,  of  which  I  had  always  been 
much  of  a  devotee.  I  arrived  too  late  for  the  first 
act  of  "Lohengrin,"  but  the  second  was  just  begin 
ning,  and  I  gave  myself  up  to  it  with  no  more 


GLASSES  167 

than  a  glance  at  the  house.  When  it  was  over  I 
treated  myself,  with  my  glass,  from  my  place  in 
the  stalls,  to  a  general  survey  of  the  boxes,  mak 
ing  doubtless  on  their  contents  the  reflections, 
pointed  by  comparison,  that  are  most  familiar  to 
the  wanderer  restored  to  London.  There  was  a 
certain  proportion  of  pretty  women,  but  I  sud 
denly  became  aware  that  one  of  these  was  far 
prettier  than  the  others.  This  lady,  alone  in  one 
of  the  smaller  receptacles  of  the  grand  tier  and 
already  the  aim  of  fifty  tentative  glasses,  which 
she  sustained  with  admirable  serenity  —  this  single 
exquisite  figure,  placed  in  the  quarter  furthest 
removed  from  my  stall,  was  a  person,  I  immedi 
ately  felt,  to  cause  one's  curiosity  to  linger. 
Dressed  in  white,  with  diamonds  in  her  hair  and 
pearls  on  her  neck,  she  had  a  pale  radiance  of 
beauty  which  even  at  that  distance  made  her  a 
distinguished  presence  and,  with  the  air  that  easily 
attaches  to  lonely  loveliness  in  public  places,  an 
agreeable  mystery.  A  mystery  however  she  re 
mained  to  me  only  for  a  minute  after  I  had 
levelled  my  glass  at  her :  I  feel  to  this  moment 
the  startled  thrill,  the  shock  almost  of  joy  with 
which  I  suddenly  encountered  in  her  vague 
brightness  a  rich  revival  of  Flora  Saunt.  I  say 


168  EMBARRASSMENTS 

a  revival  because,  to  put  it  crudely,  I  had  on  that 
last  occasion  left  poor  Flora  for  dead.  At  pres 
ent  perfectly  alive  again,  she  was  altered  only,  as 
it  were,  by  resurrection.  A  little  older,  a  little 
quieter,  a  little  finer  and  a  good  deal  fairer,  she 
was  simply  transfigured  by  recovery.  Sustained 
by  the  reflection  that  even  recovery  wouldn't 
enable  her  to  distinguish  me  in  the  crowd,  I  was 
free  to  look  at  her  well.  Then  it  was  it  came 
home  to  me  that  my  vision  of  her  in  her  great 
goggles  had  been  cruelly  final.  As  her  beauty 
was  all  there  was  of  her,  that  machinery  had 
extinguished  her,  and  so  far  as  I  had  thought  of 
her  in  the  interval  I  had  thought  of  her  as  buried 
in  the  tomb  her  stern  specialist  had  built.  With 
the  sense  that  she  had  escaped  from  it  came  a 
lively  wish  to  return  to  her  ;  and  if  I  didn't 
straightway  leave  my  place  and  rush  round  the 
theatre  and  up  to  her  box  it  was  because  I  was 
fixed  to  the  spot  some  moments  longer  by  the 
simple  inability  to  cease  looking  at  her. 

She  had  been  from  the  first  of  my  seeing  her 
practically  motionless,  leaning  back  in  her  chair 
with  a  kind  of  thoughtful  grace  and  with  her 
eyes  vaguely  directed,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  to  one 
of  the  boxes  on  my  side  of  the  house  and  conse- 


GLASSES  169 

quently  over  my  head  and  out  of  my  sight.  The 
only  movement  she  made  for  some  time  was  to 
finger  with  an  ungloved  hand  and  as  if  with  the 
habit  of  fondness  the  row  of  pearls  on  her  neck, 
which  my  glass  showed  me  to  be  large  and 
splendid.  Her  diamonds  and  pearls,  in  her  soli 
tude,  mystified  me,  making  me,  as  she  had  had 
no  such  brave  jewels  in  the  days  of  the  Hammond 
Synges,  wonder  what  undreamt-of  improvement 
had  taken  place  in  her  fortunes.  The  ghost  of  a 
question  hovered  there  a  moment :  could  any 
thing  so  prodigious  have  happened  as  that  on  her 
tested  and  proved  amendment  Lord  Iffield  had 
taken  her  back?  This  could  not  have  occurred 
without  my  hearing  of  it;  and  moreover  if  she 
had  become  a  person  of  such  fashion  where  was 
the  little  court  one  would  naturally  see  at  her 
elbow?  Her  isolation  was  puzzling,  though  it 
could  easily  suggest  that  she  was  but  momen 
tarily  alone.  If  she  had  come  with  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum  that  lady  would  have  taken  advantage  of 
the  interval  to  pay  a  visit  to  some  other  box  — 
doubtless  the  box  at  which  Flora  had  just  been 
looking.  Mrs.  Meldrum  didn't  account  for  the 
jewels,  but  the  refreshment  of  Flora's  beauty 
accounted  for  anything.  She  presently  moved 


170  EMBARRASSMENTS 

her  eyes  over  the  house,  and  I  felt  them  brush 
me  again  like  the  wings  of  a  dove.  I  don't  know 
what  quick  pleasure  flickered  into  the  hope  that 
she  would  at  last  see  me.  She  did  see  me  :  she 
suddenly  bent  forward  to  take  up  the  little 
double-barrelled  ivory  glass  that  rested  on  the 
edge  of  the  box  and,  to  all  appearance,  fix  me 
with  it.  I  smiled  from  my  place  straight  up  at 
the  searching  lenses,  and  after  an  instant  she 
dropped  them  and  smiled  as  straight  back  at  me. 
Oh,  her  smile :  it  was  her  old  smile,  her  young 
smile,  her  peculiar  smile  made  perfect !  I  in 
stantly  left  my  stall  and  hurried  off  for  a  nearer 
view  of  it ;  quite  flushed,  I  remember,  as  I  went, 
with  the  annoyance  of  having  happened  to  think 
of  the  idiotic  way  I  had  tried  to  paint  her.  Poor 
Iffield  with  his  sample  of  that  error,  and  still 
poorer  Dawling  in  particular  with  Ms  !  I  hadn't 
touched  her,  I  was  professionally  humiliated,  and 
as  the  attendant  in  the  lobby  opened  her  box  for 
me  I  felt  that  the  very  first  thing  I  should  have 
to  say  to  her  would  be  that  she  must  absolutely 
sit  to  me  again. 


XIII 

SHE  gave  me  the  smile  once  more  as  over  her 
shoulder,  from  her  chair,  she  turned  her  face  to 
me.  "Here  you  are  again!  "  she  exclaimed  with 
her  disgloved  hand  put  up  a  little  backward  for 
me  to  take.  I  dropped  into  a  chair  just  behind 
her  and,  having  taken  it  and  noted  that  one  of 
the  curtains  of  the  box  would  make  the  demon 
stration  sufficiently  private,  bent  my  lips  over  it 
and  impressed  them  on  its  finger-tips.  It  was 
given  me  however,  to  my  astonishment,  to  feel 
next  that  all  the  privacy  in  the  world  couldn't 
have  sufficed  to  mitigate  the  start  with  which 
she  greeted  this  free  application  of  my  mous 
tache  :  the  blood  had  jumped  to  her  face,  she 
quickly  recovered  her  hand  and  jerked  at 
me,  twisting  herself  round,  a  vacant,  challeng 
ing  stare.  During  the  next  few  instants  several 
extraordinary  things  happened,  the  first  of  which 

was  that   now  I  was   close   to  them  the  eyes  of 

171 


172  EMBARRASSMENTS 

loveliness  I  had  come  up  to  look  into  didn't 
show  at  all  the  conscious  light  I  had  just  been 
pleased  to  see  them  flash  across  the  house : 
they  showed  on  the  contrary,  to  my  confusion, 
a  strange,  sweet  blankness,  an  expression  I  failed 
to  give  a  meaning  to  until,  without  delay,  I  felt 
on  my  arm,  directed  to  it  as  if  instantly  to  ef 
face  the  effect  of  her  start,  the  grasp  of  the 
hand  she  had  impulsively  snatched  from  me. 
It  was  the  irrepressible  question  in  this  grasp 
that  stopped  on  my  lips  all  sound  of  saluta 
tion.  She  had  mistaken  my  entrance  for  that 
of  another  person,  a  pair  of  lips  without  a 
moustache.  She  was  feeling  me  to  see  who  I 
was !  With  the  perception  of  this  and  of  her 
not  seeing  me  I  sat  gaping  at  her  and  at  the 
wild  word  that  didn't  come,  the  right  word  to 
express  or  to  disguise  my  stupefaction.  What 
was  the  right  word  to  commemorate  one's  sud 
den  discovery,  at  the  very  moment  too  at  which 
one  had  been  most  encouraged  to  count  on 
better  things,  that  one's  dear  old  friend  had 
gone  blind?  Before  the  answer  to  this  question 
dropped  upon  me — and  the  moving  moments, 
though  few,  seemed  many  —  I  heard,  with  the 
sound  of  voices,  the  click  of  the  attendant's 


GLASSES  173 

key  on  the  other  side  of  the  door.  Poor  Flora 
heard  also,  and  with  the  hearing,  still  with  her 
hand  on  my  arm,  she  brightened  again  as  I  had  a 
minute  since  seen  her  brighten  across  the  house  : 
she  had  the  sense  of  the  return  of  the  person  she 
had  taken  me  for  —  the  person  with  the  right  pair 
of  lips,  as  to  whom  I  was  for  that  matter  much 
more  in  the  dark  than  she.  I  gasped,  but  my 
word  had  come  :  if  she  had  lost  her  sight  it 
was  in  this  very  loss  that  she  had  found  again 
her  beauty.  I  managed  to  speak  while  we  were 
still  alone,  before  her  companion  had  appeared. 
"  You're  lovelier  at  this  day  than  you  have  ever 
been  in  your  life  !  "  At  the  sound  of  my  voice 
and  that  of  the  opening  of  the  door  her  excite 
ment  broke  into  audible  joy.  She  sprang  up, 
recognising  me,  always  holding  me,  and  glee 
fully  cried  to  a  gentleman  who  was  arrested  in 
the  doorway  by  the  sight  of  me  :  "  He  has  come 
back,  he  has  come  back,  and  you  should  have 
heard  what  he  says  of  me  ! "  The  gentleman 
was  Geoffrey  Bawling,  and  I  thought  it  best 
to  let  him  hear  on  the  spot.  "How  beautiful 
she  is,  my  dear  man  —  but  how  extraordinarily 
beautiful !  More  beautiful  at  this  hour  than 
ever,  ever  before !  " 


174  EMBARRASSMENTS 

It  gave  them  almost  equal  pleasure  and  made 
Dawling  blush  up  to  his  eyes ;  while  this  in 
turn  produced,  in  spite  of  deepened  astonish 
ment,  a  blessed  snap  of  the  strain  that  I  had 
been  under  for  some  moments.  I  wanted  to  em 
brace  them  both,  and  while  the  opening  bars  of 
another  scene  rose  from  the  orchestra  I  almost 
did  embrace  Dawling,  whose  first  emotion  on  be 
holding  me  had  visibly  and  ever  so  oddly  been  a 
consciousness  of  guilt.  I  had  caught  him  some 
how  in  the  act,  though  that  was  as  yet  all  I 
knew;  but  by  the  time  we  had  sunk  noiselessly 
into  our  chairs  again  (for  the  music  was  su 
preme,  Wagner  passed  first)  my  demonstration 
ought  pretty  well  to  have  given  him  the  limit 
of  the  criticism  he  had  to  fear.  I  myself  in 
deed,  while  the  opera  blazed,  was  only  too  afraid 
he  might  divine  in  our  silent  closeness  the  very 
moral  of  my  optimism,  which  was  simply  the  com 
fort  I  had  gathered  from  seeing  that  if  our  com 
panion's  beauty  lived  again  her  vanity  partook  of 
its  life.  I  had  hit  on  the  right  note  —  that  was 
what  eased  me  off :  it  drew  all  pain  for  the 
next  half -hour  from  the  sense  of  the  deep  dark 
ness  in  which  the  stricken  woman  sat  there.  If 
the  music,  in  that  darkness,  happily  soared  and 


GLASSES  175 

swelled  for  her,  it  beat  its  wings  in  unison  with 
those  of  a  gratified  passion.  A  great  deal  came 
and  went  between  us  without  profaning  the  oc 
casion,  so  that  I  could  feel  at  the  end  of  twenty 
minutes  as  if  I  knew  almost  everything  he  might 
in  kindness  have  to  tell  me ;  knew  even  why 
Flora,  while  I  stared  at  her  from  the  stalls,  had 
misled  me  by  the  use  of  ivory  and  crystal  and 
by  appearing  to  recognise  me  and  smile.  She 
leaned  back  in  her  chair  in  luxurious  ease  :  I 
had  from  the  first  become  aware  that  the  way 
she  fingered  her  pearls  was  a  sharp  image  of 
the  wedded  state.  Nothing  of  old  had  seemed 
wanting  to  her  assurance ;  but  I  hadn't  then 
dreamed  of  the  art  with  which  she  would  wear 
that  assurance  as  a  married  woman.  She  had 
taken  him  when  everything  had  failed ;  he  had 
taken  her  when  she  herself  had  done  so.  His 
embarrassed  eyes  confessed  it  all,  confessed  the 
deep  peace  he  found  in  it.  They  only  didn't  tell 
me  why  he  had  not  written  to  me,  nor  clear  up  as 
yet  a  minor  obscurity.  Flora  after  a  while  again 
lifted  the  glass  from  the  ledge  of  the  box  and 
elegantly  swept  the  house  with  it.  Then,  by 
the  mere  instinct  of  her  grace,  a  motion  but 
half  conscious,  she  inclined  her  head  into  the 


176  EMBARRASSMENTS 

void  with  the  sketch  of  a  salute,  producing,  I 
could  see,  a  perfect  imitation  of  a  response  to 
some  homage.  Dawling  and  I  looked  at  each 
other  again :  the  tears  came  into  his  eyes.  She 
was  playing  at  perfection  still,  and  her  misfort 
une  only  simplified  the  process. 

I  recognised  that  this  was  as  near  as  I  should 
ever  come,  certainly  as  I  should  come  that  night, 
to  pressing  on  her  misfortune.  Neither  of  us 
would  name  it  more  than  we  were  doing  then, 
and  Flora  would  never  name  it  at  all.  Little  by 
little  I  perceived  that  what  had  occurred  was, 
strange  as  it  might  appear,  the  best  thing  for  her 
happiness.  The  question  was  now  only  of  her 
beauty  and  her  being  seen  and  marvelled  at : 
with  Dawling  to  do  for  her  everything  in  life  her 
activity  was  limited  to  that.  Such  an  activity 
was  all  within  her  scope  :  it  asked  nothing  of  her 
that  she  couldn't  splendidly  give.  As  from  time 
to  time  in  our  delicate  communion  she  turned  her 
face  to  me  with  the  parody  of  a  look  I  lost  none 
of  the  signs  of  its  strange  new  glory.  The  ex 
pression  of  the  eyes  was  a  bit  of  pastel  put  in  by 
a  master's  thumb  ;  the  whole  head,  stamped  with 
a  sort  of  showy  suffering,  had  gained  a  fineness 
from  what  she  had  passed  through.  Yes,  Flora 


GLASSES  177 

was  settled  for  life  —  nothing  could  hurt  her 
further.  I  foresaw  the  particular  praise  she 
would  mostly  incur  —  she  would  be  incomparably 
"interesting."  She  would  charm  with  her  pathos 
more  even  than  she  had  charmed  with  her  pleas 
ure.  For  herself  above  all  she  was  fixed  for  ever, 
rescued  from  all  change  and  ransomed  from  all 
doubt.  Her  old  certainties,  her  old  vanities  were 
justified  and  sanctified,  and  in  the  darkness  that 
had  closed  upon  her  one  object  remained  clear. 
That  object,  as  unfading  as  a  mosaic  mask,  was 
fortunately  the  loveliest  she  could  possibly  look 
upon.  The  greatest  blessing  of  all  was  of  course 
that  Dawling  thought  so.  Her  future  was  ruled 
with  the  straightest  line,  and  so  for  that  matter 
was  his.  There  were  two  facts  to  which  before  I 
left  my  friends  I  gave  time  to  sink  into  my  spirit. 
One  of  them  was  that  he  had  changed  by  some 
process  as  effective  as  Flora's  change ;  had  been 
simplified  somehow  into  service  as  she  had  been 
simplified  into  success.  He  was  such  a  picture 
of  inspired  intervention  as  I  had  never  yet  en 
countered  :  he  would  exist  henceforth  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  rendering  unnecessary,  or  rather 
impossible,  any  reference  even  on  her  own  part  to 
his  wife's  infirmity.  Oh  yes,  how  little  desire  he 


178  EMBARRASSMENTS 

would  ever  give  me  to  refer  to  it !  He  princi 
pally  after  a  while  made  me  feel  —  and  this  was 
my  second  lesson  —  that,  good-natured  as  he  was, 
my  being  there  to  see  it  all  oppressed  him  ;  so 
that  by  the  time  the  act  ended  I  recognised  that  I 
too  had  filled  out  my  hour.  Bawling  remem 
bered  things  ;  I  think  he  caught  in  my  very  face 
the  irony  of  old  judgments  :  they  made  him 
thresh  about  in  his  chair.  I  said  to  Flora  as  I 
took  leave  of  her  that  I  would  come  to  see  her ; 
but  I  may  mention  that  I  never  went.  I'll  go 
to-morrow  if  I  hear  she  wants  me  ;  but  what  in 
the  world  can  she  ever  want  ?  As  I  quitted  them 
I  laid  my  hand  on  Dawling's  arm  and  drew  him 
for  a  moment  into  the  lobby. 

"  Why  did  you  never  write  to  me  of  your  mar- 

•  o  99 

riage  ? 

He  smiled  uncomfortably,  showing  his  long 
yellow  teeth  and  something  more.  "I  don't 
know  —  the  whole  thing  gave  me  such  a  tremen 
dous  lot  to  do." 

This  was  the  first  dishonest  speech  I  had  heard 
him  make  :  he  really  hadn't  written  to  me  because 
he  had  an  idea  I  would  think  him  a  still  bigger 
fool  than  before.  I  didn't  insist,  but  I  tried 
there,  in  the  lobby,  so  far  as  a  pressure  of  his 


GLASSES  179 

hand  could  serve  me,  to  give  him  a  notion  of 
what  I  thought  him.  "  I  can't  at  any  rate  make 
out,"  I  said,  "  why  I  didn't  hear  from  Mrs.  Mel- 
drum." 

"She  didn't  write  to  you?" 

"  Never  a  word.     What  has  become  of  her  ? " 

"  I  think  she's  at  Folkestone,"  Dawling  re 
turned  ;  "  but  I'm  sorry  to  say  that  practically 
she  has  ceased  to  see  us." 

"  You  haven't  quarrelled  with  her  ?  " 

"  How  could  we  ?  Think  of  all  we  owe  her. 
At  the  time  of  our  marriage,  and  for  months 
before,  she  did  everything  for  us  :  I  don't  know 
how  we  should  have  managed  without  her.  But 
since  then  she  has  never  been  near  us  and  has 
given  us  rather  markedly  little  encouragement  to 
try  and  keep  up  our  relations  with  her." 

I  was  struck  with  this  though  of  course  I  admit 
I  am  struck  with  all  sorts  of  things.  "  Well,"  I 
said  after  a  moment,  "  even  if  I  could  imagine  a 
reason  for  that  attitude  it  wouldn't  explain  why 
she  shouldn't  have  taken  account  of  my  natural 
interest." 

"Just  so."  Dawling's  face  was  a  windowless 
wall.  He  could  contribute  nothing  to  the  mys 
tery,  and,  quitting  him,  I  carried  it  away.  It 


180  EMBARRASSMENTS 

was  not  till  I  went  down  to  see  Mrs.  Meldrum 
that  it  was  really  dispelled.  She  didn't  want  to 
hear  of  them  or  to  talk  of  them,  not  a  bit,  and  it 
was  just  in  the  same  spirit  that  she  hadn't  wanted 
to  write  of  them.  She  had  done  everything  in 
the  world  for  them,  but  now,  thank  heaven,  the 
hard  business  was  over.  After  I  had  taken  this 
in,  which  I  was  quick  to  do,  we  quite  avoided  the 
subject.  She  simply  couldn't  bear  it. 


THE  NEXT  TIME 


MRS.  HIGHMOEE'S  errand  this  morning  was 
odd  enough  to  deserve  commemoration :  she  came 
to  ask  me  to  write  a  notice  of  her  great  forth 
coming  work.  Her  great  works  have  come  forth 
so  frequently  without  my  assistance  that  I  was 
sufficiently  entitled  on  this  occasion  to  open  my 
eyes;  but  what  really  made  me  stare  was  the 
ground  on  which  her  request  reposed,  and  what 
leads  me  to  record  the  incident  is  the  train  of 
memory  lighted  by  that  explanation.  Poor  Ray 
Limbert,  while  we  talked,  seemed  to  sit  there 
between  us:  she  reminded  me  that  my  acquaint 
ance  with  him  had  begun,  eighteen  years  ago, 
with  her  having  come  in  precisely  as  she  came  in 
this  morning  to  bespeak  my  charity  for  him.  If 
she  didn't  know  then  how  little  my  charity  was 
worth  she  is  at  least  enlightened  about  it  to-day, 
and  this  is  just  the  circumstance  that  makes  the 
drollery  of  her  visit.  As  I  hold  up  the  torch  to 
183 


184  EMBARRASSMENTS 

the  dusky  years  —  by  which  I  mean  as  I  cipher 
up  with  a  pen  that  stumbles  and  stops  the  figured 
column  of  my  reminiscences  —  I  see  that  Lim- 
bert's  public  hour,  or  at  least  my  small  apprehen 
sion  of  it,  is  rounded  by  those  two  occasions.  It 
was  finis,  with  a  little  moralising  flourish,  that 
Mrs.  Highmore  seemed  to  trace  to-day  at  the 
bottom  of  the  page.  "  One  of  the  most  volumi 
nous  writers  of  the  time,"  she  has  often  repeated 
this  sign;  but  never,  I  daresay,  in  spite  of  her 
professional  command  of  appropriate  emotion, 
with  an  equal  sense  of  that  mystery  and  that 
sadness  of  things  which  to  people  of  imagination 
generally  hover  over  the  close  of  human  histories. 
This  romance  at  any  rate  is  bracketed  by  her 
early  and  her  late  appeal;  and  when  its  melan 
choly  protrusions  had  caught  the  declining  light 
again  from  my  half-hour's  talk  with  her  I  took  a 
private  vow  to  recover  while  that  light  still  lin 
gers  something  of  the  delicate  flush,  to  pick  out 
with  a  brief  patience  the  perplexing  lesson. 

It  was  wonderful  to  observe  how  for  herself 
Mrs.  Highmore  had  already  done  so:  she  wouldn't 
have  hesitated  to  announce  to  me  what  was  the 
matter  with  Ralph  Limbert,  or  at  all  events  to 
give  me  a  glimpse  of  the  high  admonition  she 


THE  NEXT  TIME  185 

had  read  in  his  career.  There  could  have  been 
no  better  proof  of  the  vividness  of  this  parable, 
which  we  were  really  in  our  pleasant  sympathy 
quite  at  one  about,  than  that  Mrs.  Highmore,  of 
all  hardened  sinners,  should  have  been  converted. 
This  indeed  was  not  news  to  me :  she  impressed 
upon  me  that  for  the  last  ten  years  she  had 
wanted  to  do  something  artistic,  something  as  to 
which  she  was  prepared  not  to  care  a  rap  whether 
or  no  it  should  sell.  She  brought  home  to  me 
further  that  it  had  been  mainly  seeing  what  her 
brother-in-law  did  and  how  he  did  it  that  had 
wedded  her  to  this  perversity.  As  he  didn't  sell, 
dear  soul,  and  as  several  persons,  of  whom  I  was 
one,  thought  highly  of  that,  the  fancy  had  taken 
her  —  taken  her  even  quite  early  in  her  prolific 
course  —  of  reaching,  if  only  once,  the  same 
heroic  eminence.  She  yearned  to  be,  like  Lim- 
bert,  but  of  course  only  once,  an  exquisite 
failure.  There  was  something  a  failure  was, 
a  failure  in  the  market,  that  a  success  somehow 
wasn't.  A  success  was  as  prosaic  as  a  good 
dinner:  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  said  about 
it  than  that  you  had  had  it.  Who  but  vulgar 
people,  in  such  a  case,  made  gloating  remarks 
about  the  courses  ?  It  was  often  by  such  vulgar 


186  EMBARRASSMENTS 

people  that  a  success  was  attested.  It  made  if 
you  came  to  look  at  it  nothing  but  money;  that 
is  it  made  so  much  that  any  other  result  showed 
small  in  comparison.  A  failure  now  could  make 
—  oh,  with  the  aid  of  immense  talent  of  course, 
for  there  were  failures  and  failures  —  such  a 
reputation!  She  did  me  the  honour  —  she  had 
often  done  it  —  to  intimate  that  what  she  meant 
by  reputation  was  seeing  me  toss  a  flower.  If  it 
took  a  failure  to  catch  a  failure  I  was  by  my  owii 
admission  well  qualified  to  place  the  laurel.  It 
was  because  she  had  made  so  much  money  and 
Mr.  Highmore  had  taken  such  care  of  it  that  she 
could  treat  herself  to  an  hour  of  pure  glory.  She 
perfectly  remembered  that  as  often  as  I  had  heard 
her  heave  that  sigh  I  had  been  prompt  with  my 
declaration  that  a  book  sold  might  easily  be  as 
glorious  as  a  book  unsold.  Of  course  she  knew 
this,  but  she  knew  also  that  it  was  the  age  of 
trash  triumphant  and  that  she  had  never  heard  me 
speak  of  anything  that  had  "done  well"  exactly 
as  she  had  sometimes  heard  me  speak  of  some 
thing  that  hadn't  —  with  just  two  or  three  words 
of  respect  which,  when  I  used  them,  seemed  to 
convey  more  than  they  commonly  stood  for, 
seemed  to  hush  up  the  discussion  a  little,  as  if 
for  the  very  beauty  of  the  secret. 


THE  NEXT   TIME  187 

I  may  declare  in  regard  to  these  allusions  that, 
whatever  I  then  thought  of  myself  as  a  holder  of 
the  scales  I  had  never  scrupled  to  laugh  out  at 
the  humour  of  Mrs.  Highmore's  pursuit  of  qual 
ity  at  any  price.  It  had  never  rescued  her  even 
for  a  day  from  the  hard  doom  of  popularity,  and 
though  I  never  gave  her  my  word  for  it  there  was 
no  reason  at  all  why  it  should.  The  public  would 
have  her,  as  her  husband  used  roguishly  to  re 
mark  ;  not  indeed  that,  making  her  bargains,  stand 
ing  up  to  her  publishers  and  even,  in  his  higher 
flights,  to  her  reviewers,  he  ever  had  a  glimpse 
of  her  attempted  conspiracy  against  her  genius, 
or  rather  as  I  may  say  against  mine.  It  was  not 
that  when  she  tried  to  be  what  she  called  subtle 
(for  wasn't  Limbert  subtle,  and  wasn't  I?)  her 
fond  consumers,  bless  them,  didn't  suspect  the 
trick  nor  show  what  they  thought  of  it:  they 
straightway  rose  on  the  contrary  to  the  morsel 
she  had  hoped  to  hold  too  high,  and,  making  but 
a  big,  cheerful  bite  of  it,  wagged  their  great 
collective  tail  artlessly  for  more.  It  was  not 
given  to  her  not  to  please,  nor  granted  even  to 
her  best  refinements  to  affright.  I  have  always 
respected  the  mystery  of  those  humiliations,  but 
I  was  fully  aware  this  morning  that  they  were 


188  EMBARRASSMENTS 

practically  the  reason  why  she  had  come  to  me. 
Therefore  when  she  said  with  the  flush  of  a  bold 
joke  in  her  kind,  coarse  face  "What  I  feel  is, 
you  know,  that  you  could  settle  me  if  you  only 
would  "  I  knew  quite  well  what  she  meant.  She 
meant  that  of  old  it  had  always  appeared  to  be 
the  fine  blade,  as  some  one  had  hyperbolically 
called  it,  of  my  particular  opinion  that  snapped 
the  silken  thread  by  which  Limbert's  chance  in 
the  market  was  wont  to  hang.  She  meant  that 
my  favour  was  compromising,  that  my  praise 
indeed  was  fatal.  I  had  made  myself  a  little 
specialty  of  seeing  nothing  in  certain  celebrities, 
of  seeing  overmuch  in  an  occasional  nobody, 
and  of  judging  from  a  point  of  view  that,  say 
what  I  would  for  it  (and  I  had  a  monstrous  deal 
to  say)  remained  perverse  and  obscure.  Mine 
was  in  short  the  love  that  killed,  for  my  subt 
lety,  unlike  Mrs.  Highmore's,  produced  no 
tremor  of  the  public  tail.  She  had  not  forgotten 
how,  toward  the  end,  when  his  case  was  worst, 
Limbert  would  absolutely  come  to  me  with  a 
funny,  shy  pathos  in  his  eyes  and  say :  "  My  dear 
fellow,  I  think  I've  done  it  this  time,  if  you'll 
only  keep  quiet."  If  my  keeping  quiet  in  those 
days  was  to  help  him  to  appear  to  have  hit  the 


THE  NEXT   TIME  189 

usual  taste,  for  the  want  of  which  he  was  starv 
ing,  so  now  my  breaking  out  was  to  help  Mrs. 
Highmore  to  appear  to  have  hit  the  unusual. 

The  moral  of  all  this  was  that  I  had  frightened 
the  public  too  much  for  our  late  friend,  but  that 
as  she  was  not  starving  this  was  exactly  what  her 
grosser  reputation  required.  And  then,  she  good- 
naturedly  and  delicately  intimated,  there  would 
always  be,  if  further  reasons  were  wanting,  the 
price  of  my  clever  little  article.  I  think  she 
gave  that  hint  with  a  flattering  impression  — 
spoiled  child  of  the  booksellers  as  she  is  —  that 
the  price  of  my  clever  little  articles  is  high. 
Whatever  it  is,  at  any  rate,  she  had  evidently 
reflected  that  poor  Limbert's  anxiety  for  his  own 
profit  used  to  involve  my  sacrificing  mine.  Any 
inconvenience  that  my  obliging  her  might  entail 
would  not  in  fine  be  pecuniary.  Her  appeal,  her 
motive,  her  fantastic  thirst  for  quality  and  her 
ingenious  theory  of  my  influence  struck  me  all 
as  excellent  comedy,  and  when  I  consented  con 
tingently  to  oblige  her  she  left  me  the  sheets  of 
her  new  novel.  I  could  plead  no  inconvenience 
and  have  been  looking  them  over;  but  I  am 
frankly  appalled  at  what  she  expects  of  me. 
What  is  she  thinking  of,  poor  dear,  and  what 


190  EMBARRASSMENTS 

has  put  it  into  her  head  that  "quality"  has 
descended  upon  her?  Why  does  she  suppose 
that  she  has  been  "artistic"?  She  hasn't  been 
anything  whatever,  I  surmise,  that  she  has  not 
inveterately  been.  What  does  she  imagine  she 
has  left  out?  What  does  she  conceive  she  has 
put  in  ?  She  has  neither  left  out  nor  put  in  any 
thing.  I  shall  have  to  write  her  an  embarrassed 
note.  The  book  doesn't  exist,  and  there's  noth 
ing  in  life  to  say  about  it.  How  can  there  be 
anything  but  the  same  old  faithful  rush  for  it? 


THIS  rush  had  already  begun  when,  early  in 
the  seventies,  in  the  interest  of  her  prospective 
brother-in-law,  she  approached  me  on  the  singu 
lar  ground  of  the  unencouraged  sentiment  I  had 
entertained  for  her  sister.  Pretty  pink  Maud 
had  cast  me  out,  but  I  appear  to  have  passed  in 
the  flurried  little  circle  for  a  magnanimous  youth. 
Pretty  pink  Maud,  so  lovely  then,  before  her 
troubles,  that  dusky  Jane  was  gratefully  con 
scious  of  all  she  made  up  for,  Maud  Stannace, 
very  literary  too,  very  languishing  and  ex 
tremely  bullied  by  her  mother,  had  yielded, 
invidiously  as  it  might  have  struck  me,  to  Ray 
Limbert's  suit,  which  Mrs.  Stannace  was  not  the 
woman  to  stomach.  Mrs.  Stannace  was  seldom 
the  woman  to  do  anything :  she  had  been  shocked 
at  the  way  her  children,  with  the  grubby  taint 
of  their  father's  blood  (he  had  published  pale 
Remains  or  flat  Conversations  of  his  father) 
191 


192  EMBARRASSMENTS 

breathed  the  alien  air  of  authorship.  If  not 
the  daughter,  nor  even  the  niece,  she  was,  if  I 
am  not  mistaken,  the  second  cousin  of  a  hundred 
earls  and  a  great  stickler  for  relationship,  so  that 
she  had  other  views  for  her  brilliant  child,  espe 
cially  after  her  quiet  one  (such  had  been  her 
original  discreet  forecast  of  the  producer  of 
eighty  volumes)  became  the  second  wife  of  an 
ex-army-surgeon,  already  the  father  of  four  chil 
dren.  Mrs.  Stannace  had  too  manifestly  dreamed 
it  would  be  given  to  pretty  pink  Maud  to  de 
tach  some  one  of  the  hundred,  who  wouldn't  be 
missed,  from  the  cluster.  It  was  because  she 
cared  only  for  cousins  that  I  unlearnt  the  way 
to  her  house,  which  she  had  once  reminded  me 
was  one  of  the  few  paths  of  gentility  I  could 
hope  to  tread.  Ralph  Limbert,  who  belonged  to 
nobody  arid  had  done  nothing  —  nothing  even  at 
Cambridge  —  had  only  the  uncanny  spell  he  had 
cast  upon  her  younger  daughter  to  recommend 
him ;  but  if  her  younger  daughter  had  a  spark  of 
filial  feeling  she  wouldn't  commit  the  indecency 
of  deserting  for  his  sake  a  deeply  dependent  and 
intensely  aggravated  mother. 

These  things  I  learned  from  Jane  Highmore, 
who,    as    if    her   books    had   been   babies    (they 


THE  NEXT  TIME  193 

remained  her  only  ones)  had  waited  till  after 
marriage  to  show  what  she  could  do  and  now 
bade  fair  to  surround  her  satisfied  spouse  (he 
took  for  some  mysterious  reason,  a  part  of  the 
credit)  with  a  little  family,  in  sets  of  triplets, 
which  properly  handled  would  be  the  support  of 
his  declining  years.  The  young  couple,  neither 
of  whom  had  a  penny,  were  now  virtually 
engaged:  the  thing  was  subject  to  Ralph's  put 
ting  his  hand  on  some  regular  employment. 
People  more  enamoured  couldn't  be  conceived, 
and  Mrs.  Highmore,  honest  woman,  who  had 
moreover  a  professional  sense  for  a  love-story, 
was  eager  to  take  them  under  her  wing.  What 
was  wanted  was  a  decent  opening  for  Limbert, 
which  it  had  occurred  to  her  I  might  assist  her 
to  find,  though  indeed  I  had  not  yet  found  any 
such  matter  for  myself.  But  it  was  well  known 
that  I  was  too  particular,  whereas  poor  Ralph, 
with  the  easy  manners  of  genius,  was  ready  to 
accept  almost  anything  to  which  a  salary,  even 
a  small  one,  was  attached.  If  he  could  only  for 
instance  get  a  place  on  a  newspaper  the  rest  of 
his  maintenance  would  come  freely  enough.  It 
was  true  that  his  two  novels,  one  of  which  she 
had  brought  to  leave  with  me,  had  passed  unper- 


194  EMBARRASSMENTS 

ceived  and  that  to  her,  Mrs.  Highmore  person 
ally,  they  didn't  irresistibly  appeal;  but  she 
could  all  the  same  assure  me  that  I  should  have 
only  to  spend  ten  minutes  with  him  (and  our 
encounter  must  speedily  take  place)  to  receive 
an  impression  of  latent  power. 

Our  encounter  took  place  soon  after  I  had  read 
the  volumes  Mrs.  Highmore  had  left  with  me,  in 
which  I  recognised  an  intention  of  a  sort  that  I 
had  then  pretty  well  given  up  the  hope  of  meet 
ing.  I  daresay  that  without  knowing  it  I  had 
been  looking  out  rather  hungrily  for  an  altar  of 
sacrifice :  however  that  may  be  I  submitted  when 
I  came  across  Ralph  Limbert  to  one  of  the  rarest 
emotions  of  my  literary  life,  the  sense  of  an 
activity  in  which  I  could  critically  rest.  The 
rest  was  deep  and  salutary,  and  it  has  not  been 
disturbed  to  this  hour.  It  has  been  a  long,  large 
surrender,  the  luxury  of  dropped  discriminations. 
He  couldn't  trouble  me,  whatever  he  did,  for  I 
practically  enjoyed  him  as  much  when  he  was 
worse  as  when  he  was  better.  It  was  a  case,  I 
suppose,  of  natural  prearrangement,  in  which, 
I  hasten  to  add,  I  keep  excellent  company.  We 
are  a  numerous  band,  partakers  of  the  same 
repose,  who  sit  together  in  the  shade  of  the 


THE  NEXT   TIME  195 

tree,  by  the  plash  of  the  fountain,  with  the  glare 
of  the  desert  around  us  and  no  great  vice  that 
I  know  of  but  the  habit  perhaps  of  estimating 
people  a  little  too  much  by  what  they  think  of  a 
certain  style.  If  it  had  been  laid  upon  these 
few  pages,  none  the  less,  to  be  the  history  of  an 
enthusiasm,  I  should  not  have  undertaken  them : 
they  are  concerned  with  Ralph  Limbert  in  rela 
tions  to  which  I  was  a  stranger  or  in  which  I 
participated  only  by  sympathy.  I  used  to  talk 
about  his  work,  but  I  seldom  talk  now:  the 
brotherhood  of  the  faith  have  become,  like  the 
Trappists,  a  silent  order.  If  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  after  mortal  disenchantments,  the  impres 
sion  he  first  produced  always  evoked  the  word 
"ingenuous,"  those  to  whom  his  face  was  familiar 
can  easily  imagine  what  it  must  have  been  when 
it  still  had  the  light  of  youth.  I  had  never  seen 
a  man  of  genius  look  so  passive,  a  man  of  expe 
rience  so  off  his  guard.  At  the  period  I  made 
his  acquaintance  this  freshness  was  all  un- 
brushed.  His  foot  had  begun  to  stumble,  but 
he  was  full  of  big  intentions  and  of  sweet  Maud 
Stannace.  Black-haired  and  pale,  deceptively 
languid,  he  had  the  eyes  of  a  clever  child  and 
the  voice  of  a  bronze  bell.  He  saw  more  even 


196  EMBARRASSMENTS 

than  I  had  done  in  the  girl  he  was  engaged  to; 
as  time  went  on  I  became  conscious  that  we  had 
both,  properly  enough,  seen  rather  more  than 
there  was.  Our  odd  situation,  that  of  the  three 
of  us,  became  perfectly  possible  from  the  moment 
I  observed  that  he  had  more  patience  with  her 
than  I  should  have  had.  I  was  happy  at  not 
having  to  supply  this  quantity,  and  she,  on  her 
side,  found  pleasure  in  being  able  to  be  imperti 
nent  to  me  without  incurring  the  reproach  of  a 
bad  wife. 

Limbert's  novels  appeared  to  have  brought  him 
no  money :  they  had  only  brought  him,  so  far  as  I 
could  then  make  out,  tributes  that  took  up  his 
time.  These  indeed  brought  him  from  several 
quarters  some  other  things,  and  on  my  part  at  the 
end  of  three  months  The  Blackport  Beacon.  I 
don't  to-day  remember  how  I  obtained  for  him 
the  London  correspondence  of  the  great  northern 
organ,  unless  it  was  through  somebody's  having 
obtained  it  for  myself.  I  seem  to  recall  that  I 
got  rid  of  it  in  Limbert's  interest,  persuaded  the 
editor  that  he  was  much  the  better  man.  The 
better  man  was  naturally  the  man  who  had 
pledged  himself  to  support  a  charming  wife. 
We  were  neither  of  us  good,  as  the  event  proved, 


THE   NEXT   TIME  197 

but  he  had  a  finer  sort  of  badness.  The  Black- 
port  Beacon  had  two  London  correspondents  — 
one  a  supposed  haunter  of  political  circles,  the 
other  a  votary  of  questions  sketchily  classified 
as  literary.  They  were  both  expected  to  be 
lively,  and  what  was  held  out  to  each  was  that 
it  was  honourably  open  to  him  to  be  livelier  than 
the  other.  I  recollect  the  political  correspondent 
of  that  period  and  how  the  problem  offered  to 
Ray  Limbert  was  to  try  to  be  livelier  than  Pat 
Moyle.  He  had  not  yet  seemed  to  me  so  candid 
as  when  he  undertook  this  exploit,  which  brought 
matters  to  a  head  with  Mrs.  Stannace,  inasmuch 
as  her  opposition  to  the  marriage  now  logically 
fell  to  the  ground.  It's  all  tears  and  laughter 
as  I  look  back  upon  that  admirable  time,  in 
which  nothing  was  so  romantic  as  our  intense 
vision  of  the  real.  No  fool's  paradise  ever  rus 
tled  such  a  cradle-song.  It  was  anything  but 
Bohemia  —  it  was  the  very  temple  of  Mrs. 
Grundy.  We  knew  we  were  too  critical,  and 
that  made  us  sublimely  indulgent;  we  believed 
we  did  our  duty  or  wanted  to,  and  that  made  us 
free  to  dream.  But  we  dreamed  over  the  multi 
plication-table  ;  we  were  nothing  if  not  practical. 
Oh,  the  long  smokes  and  sudden  ideas,  the 


198  EMBARRASSMENTS 

knowing  hints  and  banished  scruples!  The 
great  thing  was  for  Limbert  to  bring  out  his 
next  book,  which  was  just  what  his  delightful 
engagement  with  the  Beacon  would  give  him 
leisure  and  liberty  to  do.  The  kind  of  work, 
all  human  and  elastic  and  suggestive,  was  capi 
tal  experience:  in  picking  up  things  for  his 
bi-weekly  letter  he  would  pick  up  life  as  well, 
he  would  pick  up  literature.  The  new  publica 
tions,  the  new  pictures,  the  new  people — there 
would  be  nothing  too  novel  for  us  and  nobody 
too  sacred.  We  introduced  everything  and 
everybody  into  Mrs.  Stannace's  drawing-room, 
of  which  I  again  became  a  familiar. 

Mrs.  Stannace,  it  was  true,  thought  herself  in 
strange  company;  she  didn't  particularly  mind 
the  new  books,  though  some  of  them  seemed 
queer  enough,  but  to  the  new  people  she  had 
decided  objections.  It  was  notorious  however 
that  poor  Lady  Robeck  secretly  wrote  for  one  of 
the  papers,  and  the  thing  had  certainly,  in  its 
glance  at  the  doings  of  the  great  world,  a  side 
that  might  be  made  attractive.  But  we  were 
going  to  make  every  side  attractive,  and  we  had 
everything  to  say  about  the  sort  of  thing  a  paper 
like  the  Beacon  would  want.  To  give  it  what  it 


THE   NEXT   TIME  199 

would  want  and  to  give  it  nothing  else  was  not 
doubtless  an  inspiring,  but  it  was  a  perfectly 
respectable  task,  especially  for  a  man  with  an 
appealing  bride  and  a  contentious  mother-in-law. 
I  thought  Limbert's  first  letters  as  charming  as 
the  type  allowed,  though  I  won't  deny  that  in 
spite  of  my  sense  of  the  importance  of  conces 
sions  I  was  just  a  trifle  disconcerted  at  the  way 
he  had  caught  the  tone.  The  tone  was  of  course 
to  be  caught,  but  need  it  have  been  caught  so 
in  the  act?  The  creature  was  even  cleverer,  as 
Maud  Starinace  said,  than  she  had  ventured  to 
hope.  Verily  it  was  a  good  thing  to  have  a 
dose  of  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent.  If  it  had  to 
be  journalism  —  well,  it  was  journalism.  If  he 
had  to  be  "  chatty  "  —  well,  he  was  chatty.  Now 
and  then  he  made  a  hit  that  —  it  was  stupid  of 
me  — .  brought  the  blood  to  my  face.  I  hated  him 
to  be  so  personal ;  but  still,  if  it  would  make  his 

fortune !     It  wouldn't  of  course  directly,  but 

the  book  would,  practically  and  in  the  sense  to 
which  our  pure  ideas  of  fortune  were  confined; 
and  these  things  were  all  for  the  book.  The 
daily  balm  meanwhile  was  in  what  one  knew  of 
the  book  —  there  were  exquisite  things  to  know; 
in  the  quiet  monthly  cheques  from  Blackport 


200  EMBARRASSMENTS 

and  in  the  deeper  rose  of  Maud's  little  prepara 
tions,  which  were  as  dainty,  on  their  tiny  scale, 
as  if  she  had  been  a  humming-bird  building  a 
nest.  When  at  the  end  of  three  months  her 
betrothed  had  fairly  settled  down  to  his  corre 
spondence —  in  which  Mrs.  Highmore  was  the 
only  person,  so  far  as  we  could  discover,  disap 
pointed,  even  she  moreover  being  in  this  par 
ticular  tortuous  and  possibly  jealous;  when  the 
situation  had  assumed  such  a  comfortable  shape 
it  was  quite  time  to  prepare.  I  published  at 
that  moment  my  first  volume,  mere  faded  ink 
to-day,  a  little  collection  of  literary  impressions, 
odds  and  ends  of  criticism  contributed  to  a 
journal  less  remunerative  but  also  less  chatty 
than  the  Beacon^  small  ironies  and  ecstasies, 
great  phrases  and  mistakes;  and  the  very  week 
it  came  out  poor  Limbert  devoted  half  of  one  of 
his  letters  to  it,  with  the  happy  sense  this  time 
of  gratifying  both  himself  arid  me  as  well  as  the 
Blackport  breakfast-tables.  I  remember  his  say 
ing  it  wasn't  literature,  the  stuff,  superficial 
stuff,  he  had  to  write  about  me;  but  what  did 
that  matter  if  it  came  back,  as  we  knew,  to  the 
making  for  literature  in  the  roundabout  way? 
I  sold  the  thing,  I  remember,  for  ten  pounds, 


THE  NEXT   TIME  201 

and  with  the  money  I  bought  in  Vigo  Street  a 
quaint  piece  of  old  silver  for  Maud  Stannace, 
which  I  carried  to  her  with  my  own  hand  as  a 
wedding-gift.  In  her  mother's  small  drawing- 
room,  a  faded  bower  of  photography  fenced  in 
and  bedimmed  by  folding  screens  out  of  which 
sallow  persons  of  fashion  with  dashing  signa 
tures  looked  at  you  from  retouched  eyes  and 
little  windows  of  plush,  I  was  left  to  wait  long 
enough  to  feel  in  the  air  of  the  house  a  hushed 
vibration  of  disaster.  When  our  young  lady 
came  in  she  was  very  pale  and  her  eyes  too  had 
been  retouched. 

"Something  horrid  has  happened,"  I  immedi 
ately  said;  and  having  really  all  along  but  half 
believed  in  her  mother's  meagre  permission  I 
risked  with  an  unguarded  groan  the  introduction 
of  Mrs.  Stannace 's  name. 

"Yes,  she  has  made  a  dreadful  scene;  she 
insists  on  our  putting  it  off  again.  We're  very 
unhappy:  poor  Ray  has  been  turned  off."  Her 
tears  began  to  flow  again. 

I  had  such  a  good  conscience  that  I  stared. 
"Turned  off  what?" 

"Why,  his  paper  of  course.  The  Beacon  has 
given  him  what  he  calls  the  sack.  They  don't 


202  EMBARRASSMENTS 

like  his  letters:  they're  not  the  style  of  thing 
they  want." 

My  blankness  could  only  deepen.  "Then 
what  style  of  thing  do  they  want?" 

"Something  more  chatty." 

"More?"  I  cried,  aghast. 

"More  gossipy,  more  personal.  They  want 
'journalism.'  They  want  tremendous  trash." 

"Why,  that's  just  what  his  letters  have 
been!"  I  broke  out. 

This  was  strong,  and  I  caught  myself  up,  but 
the  girl  offered  me  the  pardon  of  a  beautiful  wan 
smile.  "So  Ray  himself  declares.  He  says  he 
has  stooped  so  low." 

"Very  well  —  he  must  stoop  lower.  He  must 
keep  the  place." 

"He  can't!"  poor  Maud  wailed.  "He  says 
he  has  tried  all  he  knows,  has  been  abject,  has 
gone  on  all  fours,  and  that  if  they  don't  like 
that " 

"He  accepts  his  dismissal?"  I  interposed  in 
dismay. 

She  gave  a  tragic  shrug.  "  What  other  course 
is  open  to  him?  He  wrote  to  them  that  such 
work  as  he  has  done  is  the  very  worst  he  can  do 
for  the  money." 


THE  NEXT  TIME  203 

"Therefore,"  I  inquired  with  a  flash  of  hope, 
"they'll  offer  him  more  for  worse?" 

"No  indeed,"  she  answered,  "they  haven't 
even  offered  him  to  go  on  at  a  reduction.  He 
isn't  funny  enough." 

I  reflected  a  moment.  "But  surely  such  a 
thing  as  his  notice  of  my  book !  " 

"  It  was  your  wretched  book  that  was  the  last 
straw!  He  should  have  treated  it  superficially." 

"Well,  if  he  didn't !"  I  began.     Then  I 

checked  myself.     "  Je  vous  porte  malheur. " 

She  didn't  deny  this;  she  only  went  on: 
"What  on  earth  is  he  to  do?" 

"He's  to  do  better  than  the  monkeys!  He's 
to  write!" 

"  But  what  on  earth  are  we  to  marry  on  ?  " 

I  considered  once  more.  "  You're  to  marry  on 
The  Major  Key." 


II 


THE  Major  Key  was  the  new  novel,  and  the 
great  thing  accordingly  was  to  finish  it;  a  con 
summation  for  which  three  months  of  the  Beacon 
had  in  some  degree  prepared  the  way.  The 
action  of  that  journal  was  indeed  a  shock,  but 
I  didn't  know  then  the  worst,  didn't  know  that 
in  addition  to  being  a  shock  it  was  also  a  symp 
tom.  It  was  the  first  hint  of  the  difficulty  to 
which  poor  Limber t  was  eventually  to  succumb. 
His  state  was  the  happier  of  a  truth  for  his  not 
immediately  seeing  all  that  it  meant.  Difficulty 
was  the  law  of  life,  but  one  could  thank  heaven 
it  was  exceptionally  present  in  that  horrid 
quarter.  There  was  the  difficulty  that  inspired, 
the  difficulty  of  The  Major  Key  to  wit,  which 
it  was  after  all  base  to  sacrifice  to  the  turning 
of  somersaults  for  pennies.  These  convictions 
Ray  Limbert  beguiled  his  fresh  wait  by  blandly 
entertaining :  not  indeed,  I  think,  that  the  failure 
204 


THE  NEXT  TIME  205 

of  his  attempt  to  be  chatty  didn't  leave  him 
slightly  humiliated.  If  it  was  bad  enough  to 
have  grinned  through  a  horse-collar  it  was  very 
bad  indeed  to  have  grinned  in  vain.  Well,  he 
would  try  no  more  grinning  or  at  least  no  more 
horse-collars.  The  only  success  worth  one's  pow 
der  was  success  in  the  line  of  one's  idiosyncrasy. 
Consistency  was  in  itself  distinction,  and  what 
was  talent  but  the  art  of  being  completely  what 
ever  it  was  that  one  happened  to  be?  One's 
things  were  characteristic  or  they  were  nothing. 
I  look  back  rather  fondly  on  our  having  ex 
changed  in  those  days  these  admirable  remarks 
and  many  others  ;  on  our  having  been  very  happy 
too,  in  spite  of  postponements  and  obscurities,  in 
spite  also  of  such  occasional  hauntings  as  could 
spring  from  our  lurid  glimpse  of  the  fact  that 
even  twaddle  cunningly  calculated  was  far  above 
people's  heads.  It  was  easy  to  wave  away  spec 
tres  by  the  reflection  that  all  one  had  to  do  was 
not  to  write  for  people ;  it  was  certainly  not  for 
people  that  Limbert  wrote  while  he  hammered 
at  The  Major  Key.  The  taint  of  literature  was 
fatal  only  in  a  certain  kind  of  air,  which  was 
precisely  the  kind  against  which  we  had  now 
closed  our  window.  Mrs.  Stannace  rose  from  her 


206  EMBARRASSMENTS 

crumpled  cushions  as  soon  as  she  had  obtained  an 
adjournment,  and  Maud  looked  pale  and  proud, 
quite  victorious  and  superior,  at  her  having  ob 
tained  nothing  more.  Maud  behaved  well,  I 
thought,  to  her  mother,  and  well  indeed  for  a 
girl  who  had  mainly  been  taught  to  be  flowerlike 
to  every  one.  What  she  gave  Ray  Limbert  her 
tine,  abundant  needs  made  him  then  and  ever  pay 
for;  but  the  gift  was  liberal,  almost  wonderful 
—  an  assertion  I  make  even  while  remembering 
to  how  many  clever  women,  early  and  late,  his 
work  has  been  dear.  It  was  not  only  that  the 
woman  he  was  to  marry  was  in  love  with  him, 
but  that  (this  was  the  strangeness)  she  had 
really  seen  almost  better  than  any  one  what  he 
could  do.  The  greatest  strangeness  was  that  she 
didn't  want  him  to  do  something  different.  This 
boundless  belief  was  indeed  the  main  way  of  her 
devotion;  and  as  an  act  of  faith  it  naturally  asked 
for  miracles.  She  was  a  rare  wife  for  a  poet 
if  she  was  not  perhaps  the  best  who  could  have 
been  picked  out  for  a  poor  man. 

Well,  we  were  to  have  the  miracles  at  all  events 
and  we  were  in  a  perfect  state  of  mind  to  receive 
them.  There  were  more  of  us  every  day,  and 
we  thought  highly  even  of  our  friend's  odd  jobs 


THE  NEXT  TIME  207 

and  pot-boilers.  The  Beacon  had  had  no  succes 
sor,  but  he  found  some  quiet  corners  and  stray 
chances.  Perpetually  poking  the  fire  and  look 
ing  out  of  the  window,  he  was  certainly  not  a 
monster  of  facility,  but  he  was,  thanks  perhaps 
to  a  certain  method  in  that  madness,  a  monster 
of  certainty.  It  wasn't  every  one  however  who 
knew  him  for  this  :  many  editors  printed  him 
but  once.  He  was  getting  a  small  reputation  as 
a  man  it  was  well  to  have  the  first  time  ;  he 
created  obscure  apprehensions  as  to  what  might 
happen  the  second.  He  was  good  for  making  an 
impression,  but  no  one  seemed  exactly  to  know 
what  the  impression  was  good  for  when  made. 
The  reason  was  simply  that  they  had  not  seen 
yet  The  Major  Key,  that  fiery-hearted  rose  as  to 
which  we  watched  in  private  the  formation  of 
petal  after  petal  and  flame  after  flame.  Nothing 
mattered  but  this,  for  it  had  already  elicited  a 
splendid  bid,  much  talked  about  in  Mrs.  High- 
more's  drawing-room,  where  at  this  point  my 
reminiscences  grow  particularly  thick.  Her  roses 
bloomed  all  the  year  and  her  sociability  increased 
with  her  row  of  prizes.  We  had  an  idea  that  we 
"  met  every  one  "  there  —  so  we  naturally  thought 
when  we  met  each  other.  Between  our  hostess 


208  EMBABKASSMENTS 

and  Ray  Limbert  flourished  the  happiest  relation, 
the  only  cloud  on  which  was  that  her  husband 
eyed  him  rather  askance.  When  he  was  called 
clever  this  personage  wanted  to  know  what  he 
had  to  "  show ; "  and  it  was  certain  that  he 
showed  nothing  that  could  compare  with  Jane 
Highmore.  Mr.  Highmore  took  his  stand  on 
accomplished  work  and,  turning  up  his  coat-tails, 
warmed  his  rear  with  a  good  conscience  at  the 
neat  bookcase  in  which  the  generations  of  triplets 
were  chronologically  arranged.  The  harmony 
between  his  companions  rested  on  the  fact  that, 
as  I  have  already  hinted,  each  would  have  liked 
so  much  to  be  the  other.  Limbert  couldn't  but 
have  a  feeling  about  a  woman  who  in  addition 
to  being  the  best  creature  and  her  sister's  backer 
would  have  made,  could  she  have  condescended, 
such  a  success  with  the  Beacon.  On  the  other 
hand  Mrs.  Highmore  used  freely  to  say  :  "  Do 
you  know,  he'll  do  exactly  the  thing  that  /  want 
to  do  ?  I  shall  never  do  it  myself,  but  he'll  do  it 
instead.  Yes,  he'll  do  my  thing,  and  I  shall  hate 
him  for  it  —  the  wretch. "  Hating  him  was  her 
pleasant  humour,  for  the  wretch  was  personally 
to  her  taste. 

She  prevailed  on  her  own  publisher  to  promise 


THE  NEXT  TIME  209 

to  take  The  Major  Key  and  to  engage  to  pay  a 
considerable  sum  down,  as  the  phrase  is,  on  the 
presumption  of  its  attracting  attention.  This  was 
good  news  for  the  evening's  end  at  Mrs.  High- 
more's  when  there  were  only  four  or  five  left  and 
cigarettes  ran  low;  but  there  was  better  news 
to  come,  and  I  have  never  forgotten  how,  as  it 
was  I  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  bring  it,  I 
kept  it  back  on  one  of  those  occasions,  for  the 
sake  of  my  effect,  till  only  the  right  people  re 
mained.  The  right  people  were  now  more  and 
more  numerous,  but  this  was  a  revelation  ad 
dressed  only  to  a  choice  residuum  —  a  residuum 
including  of  course  Limbert  himself,  with  whom  I 
haggled  for  another  cigarette  before  I  announced 
that  as  a  consequence  of  an  interview  I  had  had 
with  him  that  afternoon,  and  of  a  subtle  argument 
I  had  brought  to  bear,  Mrs.  Highmore's  pearl  of 
publishers  had  agreed  to  put  forth  the  new  book 
as  a  serial.  He  was  to  "  run  "  it  in  his  magazine 
and  he  was  to  pay  ever  so  much  more  for  the 
privilege.  I  produced  a  fine  gasp  which  pres 
ently  found  a  more  articulate  relief,  but  poor 
Limbert's  voice  failed  him  once  for  all  (he  knew 
he  was  to  walk  away  with  me)  and  it  was  some 
one  else  who  asked  me  in  what  my  subtle  argu- 


210  EMBARRASSMENTS 

ment  had  resided.  I  forget  what  florid  descrip 
tion  I  then  gave  of  it :  to-day  I  have  no  reason 
not  to  confess  that  it  had  resided  in  the  simple 
plea  that  the  book  was  exquisite.  I  had  said  : 
"  Come,  my  dear  friend,  be  original ;  just  risk 
it  for  that  !  "  My  dear  friend  seemed  to  rise  to 
the  chance,  and  I  followed  up  my  advantage, 
permitting  him  honestly  no  illusion  as  to  the 
quality  of  the  work.  He  clutched  interrogatively 
at  two  or  three  attenuations,  but  I  dashed  them 
aside,  leaving  him  face  to  face  with  the  formi 
dable  truth.  It  was  just  a  pure  gem  :  was  he 
the  man  not  to  flinch?  His  danger  appeared  to 
have  acted  upon  him  as  the  anaconda  acts  upon 
the  rabbit ;  fascinated  and  paralysed,  he  had  been 
engulfed  in  the  long  pink  throat.  When  a  week 
before,  at  my  request,  Limbert  had  let  me  possess 
for  a  day  the  complete  manuscript,  beautifully 
copied  out  by  Maud  Stannace,  I  had  flushed  with 
indignation  at  its  having  to  be  said  of  the  author 
of  such  pages  that  he  hadn't  the  common  means 
to  marry.  I  had  taken  the  field  in  a  great  glow 
to  repair  this  scandal,  and  it  was  therefore  quite 
directly  my  fault  if  three  months  later,  when 
The  Major  Key  began  to  run,  Mrs.  Stannace  was 
driven  to  the  wall.  She  had  made  a  condition 


THE  NEXT  TIME  211 

of  a  fixed  income  ;  and  at  last  a  fixed  income  was 
achieved. 

She  had  to  recognise  it,  and  after  much  prostra 
tion  among  the  photographs  she  recognised  it  to 
the  extent  of  accepting  some  of  the  convenience 
of  it  in  the  form  of  a  project  for  a  common  house 
hold,  to  the  expenses  of  which  each  party  should 
proportionately  contribute.  Jane  Highmore  made 
a  great  point  of  her  not  being  left  alone,  but  Mrs. 
Stannace  herself  determined  the  proportion,  which 
on  Limbert's  side  at  least  and  in  spite  of  many 
other  fluctuations  was  never  altered.  His  income 
had  been  "fixed"  with  a  vengeance  :  having  pain 
fully  stooped  to  the  comprehension  of  it  Mrs. 
Stannace  rested  on  this  effort  to  the  end  and 
asked  no  further  question  on  the  subject.  The 
Major  Key  in  other  words  ran  ever  so  long,  and 
before  it  was  half  out  Limbert  and  Maud  had 
been  married  and  the  common  household  set  up. 
These  first  months  were  probably  the  happiest 
in  the  family  annals,  with  wedding-bells  and 
budding  laurels,  the  quiet,  assured  course  of  the 
book  and  the  friendly,  familiar  note,  round  the 
corner,  of  Mrs.  Highmore's  big  guns.  They  gave 
Ralph  time  to  block  in  another  picture  as  well  as 
to  let  me  know  after  a  while  that  he  had  the 


212  EMBARRASSMENTS 

happy  prospect  of  becoming  a  father.  We  had 
at  times  some  dispute  as  to  whether  The  Major 
Key  was  making  an  impression,  but  our  conten 
tion  could  only  be  futile  so  long  as  we  were  not 
agreed  as  to  what  an  impression  consisted  of. 
Several  persons  wrote  to  the  author  and  several 
others  asked  to  be  introduced  to  him  :  wasn't 
that  an  impression  ?  One  of  the  lively  "  week 
lies,"  snapping  at  the  deadly  "monthlies,"  said 
the  whole  thing  was  "grossly  inartistic"  —  wasn't 
that  ?  It  was  somewhere  else  proclaimed  "  a  won 
derfully  subtle  character-study  "  —  wasn't  that 
too  ?  The  strongest  effect  doubtless  was  pro 
duced  on  the  publisher  when,  in  its  lemon-col 
oured  volumes,  like  a  little  dish  of  three  custards, 
the  book  was  at  last  served  cold :  he  never  got 
his  money  back  and  so  far  as  I  know  has  never 
got  it  back  to  this  day.  The  Major  Key  was 
rather  a  great  performance  than  a  great  success. 
It  converted  readers  into  friends  and  friends  into 
lovers ;  it  placed  the  author,  as  the  phrase  is  — 
placed  him  all  too  definitely ;  but  it  shrank  to 
obscurity  in  the  account  of  sales  eventually  ren 
dered.  It  was  in  short  an  exquisite  thing,  but  it 
was  scarcely  a  thing  to  have  published  and  cer 
tainly  not  a  thing  to  have  married  on.  I  heard 


THE  NEXT  TIME  213 

all  about  the  matter,  for  my  intervention  had 
much  exposed  me.  Mrs.  Highmore  said  the  sec 
ond  volume  had  given  her  ideas,  and  the  ideas 
are  probably  to  be  found  in  some  of  her  works, 
to  the  circulation  of  which  they  have  even  per 
haps  contributed.  This  was  not  absolutely  yet 
the  very  thing  she  wanted  to  do,  but  it  was  on 
the  way  to  it.  So  much,  she  informed  me,  she 
particularly  perceived  in  the  light  of  a  critical 
study  which  I  put  forth  in  a  little  magazine ; 
which  the  publisher  in  his  advertisements  quoted 
from  profusely ;  and  as  to  which  there  sprang  up 
some  absurd  story  that  Limbert  himself  had  writ 
ten  it.  I  remember  that  on  my  asking  some  one 
why  such  an  idiotic  thing  had  been  said  my  in 
terlocutor  replied  :  "  Oh,  because,  you  know,  it's 
just  the  way  he  would  have  written  !  "  My  spirit 
sank  a  little  perhaps  as  I  reflected  that  with  such 
analogies  in  our  manner  there  might  prove  to  be 
some  in  our  fate. 

It  was  during  the  next  four  or  five  years  that  our 
eyes  were  open  to  what,  unless  something  could 
be  done,  that  fate,  at  least  on  Limbert's  part, 
might  be.  The  thing  to  be  done  was  of  course 
to  write  the  book,  the  book  that  would  make  the 
difference,  really  justify  the  burden  he  had  ac- 


214  EMBARRASSMENTS 

cepted  and  consummately  express  his  power. 
For  the  works  that  followed  upon  The  Major  Key 
he  had  inevitably  to  accept  conditions  the  reverse 
of  brilliant,  at  a  time  too  when  the  strain  upon  his 
resources  had  begun  to  show  sharpness.  With 
three  babies  in  due  course,  an  ailing  wife  and 
a  complication  still  greater  than  these,  it  be 
came  highly  important  that  a  man  should  do 
only  his  best.  Whatever  Limber t  did  was  his 
best ;  so  at  least  each  time  I  thought  and  so  I 
unfailingly  said  somewhere,  though  it  was  not 
my  saying  it,  heaven  knows,  that  made  the  de 
sired  difference.  Every  one  else  indeed  said  it, 
and  there  was  among  multiplied  worries  always 
the  comfort  that  his  position  was  quite  assured. 
The  two  books  that  followed  The  Major  Key  did 
more  than  anything  else  to  assure  it,  and  Jane 
Highmore  was  always  crying  out:  "You  stand 
alone,  dear  Ray  ;  you  stand  absolutely  alone  !  " 
Dear  Ray  used  to  tell  me  that  he  felt  the  truth 
of  this  in  feebly  attempted  discussions  with  his 
bookseller.  His  sister-in-law  gave  him  good 
advice  into  the  bargain;  she  was  a  repository 
of  knowing  hints,  of  esoteric  learning.  These 
things  were  doubtless  not  the  less  valuable  to 
him  for  bearing  wholly  on  the  question  of  how 


THE  NEXT  TIME  215 

a  reputation  might  be  with  a  little  gumption,  as 
Mrs.  Highmore  said,  "worked."  Save  when  she 
occasionally  bore  testimony  to  her  desire  to  do, 
as  Limbert  did,  something  some  day  for  her  own 
very  self,  I  never  heard  her  speak  of  the  literary 
motive  as  if  it  were  distinguishable  from  the  pe 
cuniary.  She  cocked  up  his  hat,  she  pricked  up 
his  prudence  for  him,  reminding  him  that  as  one 
seemed  to  take  one's  self  so  the  silly  world  was 
ready  to  take  one.  It  was  a  fatal  mistake  to  be 
too  candid  even  with  those  who  were  all  right  — 
not  to  look  and  to  talk  prosperous,  not  at  least  to 
pretend  that  one  had  beautiful  sales.  To  listen 
to  her  you  would  have  thought  the  profession  of 
letters  a  wonderful  game  of  bluff.  Wherever 
one's  idea  began  it  ended  somehow  in  inspired 
paragraphs  in  the  newspapers.  "/  pretend,  I 
assure  you,  that  you  are  going  off  like  wild 
fire  —  I  can  at  least  do  that  for  you !  "  she 
often  declared,  prevented  as  she  was  from  doing 
much  else  by  Mr.  Highmore's  insurmountable 
objection  to  their  taking  Mrs.  Stannace. 

I  couldn't  help  regarding  the  presence  of  this 
latter  lady  in  Limbert's  life  as  the  major  com 
plication  :  whatever  he  attempted  it  appeared 
given  to  him  to  achieve  as  best  he  could  in  the 


216  EMBARRASSMENTS 

mere  margin  of  the  space  in  which  she  swung 
her  petticoats.  I  may  err  in  the  belief  that  she 
practically  lived  on  him,  for  though  it  was  not  in 
him  to  follow  adequately  Mrs.  Highmore's  coun 
sel  there  were  exasperated  confessions  he  never 
made,  scanty  domestic  curtains  he  rattled  on 
their  rings.  I  may  exaggerate  in  the  retrospect 
his  apparent  anxieties,  for  these  after  all  were 
the  years  when  his  talent  was  freshest  and  when 
as  a  writer  he  most  laid  down  his  line.  It  wasn't 
of  Mrs.  Stannace  nor  even  as  time  went  on  of 
Mrs.  Limbert  that  we  mainly  talked  when  I 
got  at  longer  intervals  a  smokier  hour  in  the 
little  grey  den  from  which  we  could  step  out, 
as  we  used  to  say,  to  the  lawn.  The  lawn  was 
the  back-garden,  and  Limbert's  study  was  behind 
the  dining-room,  with  folding  doors  not  imper 
vious  to  the  clatter  of  the  children's  tea.  We 
sometimes  took  refuge  from  it  in  the  depths  — 
a  bush  and  a  half  deep  —  of  the  shrubbery, 
where  was  a  bench  that  gave  us  a  view  while 
we  gossiped  of  Mrs.  Stannace' s  tiara-like  head 
dress  nodding  at  an  upper  window.  Within 
doors  and  without  Limbert's  life  was  overhung 
by  an  awful  region  that  figured  in  his  conver 
sation,  comprehensively  and  with  unpremedi- 


THE  NEXT  TIME  217 

tated  art,  as  Upstairs.  It  was  Upstairs  that 
the  thunder  gathered,  that  Mrs.  Stannace  kept 
her  accounts  and  her  state,  that  Mrs.  Limbert 
had  her  babies  and  her  headaches,  that  the  bells 
for  ever  jangled  at  the  maids,  that  everything 
imperative  in  short  took  place  —  everything  that 
he  had  somehow,  pen  in  hand,  to  meet  and  dis 
pose  of  in  the  little  room  on  the  garden-level. 
I  don't  think  he  liked  to  go  Upstairs,  but  no 
special  burst  of  confidence  was  needed  to  make 
me  feel  that  a  terrible  deal  of  service  went.  It 
was  the  habit  of  the  ladies  of  the  Stannace  fam 
ily  to  be  extremely  waited  on,  and  I've  never 
been  in  a  house  where  three  maids  and  a  nurs 
ery-governess  gave  such  an  impression  of  a  ret 
inue.  "  Oh,  they're  so  deucedly,  so  hereditarily 
fine  !  "  —  I  remember  how  that  dropped  from 
him  in  some  worried  hour.  Well,  it  was  be 
cause  Maud  was  so  universally  fine  that  we  had 
both  been  in  love  with  her.  It  was  not  an  air 
moreover  for  the  plaintive  note  :  no  private  in 
convenience  could  long  outweigh  for  him  the 
great  happiness  of  these  years  —  the  happiness 
that  sat  with  us  when  we  talked  and  that  made 
it  always  amusing  to  talk,  the  sense  of  his  being 
on  the  heels  of  success,  coming  closer  and  closer, 


218  EMBARRASSMENTS 

touching  it  at  last,  knowing  that  he  should  touch 
it  again  and  hold  it  fast  and  hold  it  high.  Of 
course  when  we  said  success  we  didn't  mean  ex 
actly  what  Mrs.  Highmore  for  instance  meant. 
He  used  to  quote  at  me  as  a  definition  some 
thing  from  a  nameless  page  of  my  own,  some 
stray  dictum  to  the  effect  that  the  man  of  his 
craft  had  achieved  it  when  of  a  beautiful  sub 
ject  his  expression  was  complete.  Well,  wasn't 
Limbert's  in  all  conscience  complete? 


Ill 


IT  was  bang  upon  this  completeness  all  the 
same  that  the  turn  arrived,  the  turn  I  can't  say 
of  his  fortune  —  for  what  was  that  ?  —  but  of  his 
confidence,  of  his  spirits  and,  what  was  more  to 
the  point,  of  his  system.  The  whole  occasion  on 
which  the  first  symptom  flared  out  is  before  me 
as  I  write.  I  had  met  them  both  at  dinner : 
they  were  diners  who  had  reached  the  penulti 
mate  stage  —  the  stage  which  in  theory  is  a  rigid 
selection  and  in  practice  a  wan  submission.  It 
was  late  in  the  season  and  stronger  spirits  than 
theirs  were  broken ;  the  night  was  close  and  the 
air  of  the  banquet  such  as  to  restrict  conversa 
tion  to  the  refusal  of  dishes  and  consumption  to 
the  sniffing  of  a  flower.  It  struck  me  all  the 
more  that  Mrs.  Limbert  was  flying  her  flag.  As 
vivid  as  a  page  of  her  husband's  prose,  she  had 
one  of  those  flickers  of  freshness  that  are  the 
miracle  of  her  sex  and  one  of  those  expensive 

219 


220  EMBARRASSMENTS 

dresses  that  are  the  miracle  of  ours.  She  had 
also  a  neat  brougham  in  which  she  had  offered 
to  rescue  an  old  lady  from  the  possibilities  of  a 
queer  cab-horse ;  so  that  when  she  had  rolled 
away  with  her  charge  I  proposed  a  walk  home 
with  her  husband,  whom  I  had  overtaken  on  the 
doorstep.  Before  I  had  gone  far  with  him  he 
told  me  he  had  news  for  me  —  he  had  accepted, 
of  all  people  and  of  all  things,  an  "  editorial  posi 
tion."  It  had  come  to  pass  that  very  day,  from 
one  hour  to  another,  without  time  for  appeals  or 
ponderations :  Mr.  Bousefield,  the  proprietor  of 
a  "high-class  monthly,"  making,  as  they  said,  a 
sudden  change,  had  dropped  on  him  heavily  out 
of  the  blue.  It  was  all  right — there  was  a  salary 
and  an  idea,  and  both  of  them,  as  such  things 
went,  rather  high.  We  took  our  way  slowly 
through  the  vacant  streets,  and  in  the  explana 
tions  and  revelations  that  as  we  lingered  iinder 
lamp-posts  I  drew  from  him  I  found  with  an 
apprehension  that  I  tried  to  gulp  down  a  fore 
taste  of  the  bitter  end.  He  told  me  more  than 
he  had  ever  told  me  yet.  He  couldn't  balance 
accounts  —  that  was  the  trouble :  his  expenses 
were  too  rising  a  tide.  It  was  absolutely  neces 
sary  that  he  should  at  last  make  money,  and  now 


THE   NEXT   TIME  221 

he  must  work  only  for  that.  The  need  this  last 
year  had  gathered  the  force  of  a  crusher :  it  had 
rolled  over  him  and  laid  him  on  his  back.  He 
had  his  scheme ;  this  time  he  knew  what  he  was 
about ;  on  some  good  occasion,  with  leisure  to  talk 
it  over,  he  would  tell  me  the  blessed  whole.  His 
editorship  would  help  him,  and  for  the  rest  he 
must  help  himself.  If  he  couldn't  they  would  have 
to  do  something  fundamental  —  change  their  life 
altogether,  give  up  London,  move  into  the  coun 
try,  take  a  house  at  thirty  pounds  a  year,  send 
their  children  to  the  Board-school.  I  saw  that 
he  was  excited,  and  he  admitted  that  he  was  :  he 
had  waked  out  of  a  trance.  He  had  been  on  the 
wrong  tack ;  he  had  piled  mistake  on  mistake. 
It  was  the  vision  of  his  remedy  that  now  excited 
him :  ineffably,  grotesquely  simple,  it  had  yet 
come  to  him  only  within  a  day  or  two.  No,  he 
wouldn't  tell  me  what  it  was ;  he  would  give  me 
the  night  to  guess,  and  if  I  shouldn't  guess  it 
would  be  because  I  was  as  big  an  ass  as  himself. 
However,  a  lone  man  might  be  an  ass :  he  had 
room  in  his  life  for  his  ears.  Ray  had  a  burden 
that  demanded  a  back :  the  back  must  therefore 
now  be  properly  instituted.  As  to  the  editor 
ship,  it  was  simply  heaven-sent,  being  not  at  all 


222  EMBARRASSMENTS 

another  case  of  The  Blackport  Beacon  but  a  case 
of  the  very  opposite.  The  proprietor,  the  great 
Mr.  Bousefield,  had  approached  him  precisely 
because  his  name,  which  was  to  be  on  the  cover, 
didn't  represent  the  chatty.  The  whole  thing 
was  to  be  —  oh,  on  fiddling  little  lines  of  course 
—  a  protest  against  the  chatty.  Bousefield 
wanted  him  to  be  himself;  it  was  for  himself 
Bousefield  had  picked  him  out.  Wasn't  it 
beautiful  and  brave  of  Bousefield?  He  wanted 
literature,  he  saw  the  great  reaction  coming,  the 
way  the  cat  was  going  to  jump.  "Where  will 
you  get  literature  ?  "  I  wofully  asked ;  to  which 
he  replied  with  a  laugh  that  what  he  had  to  get 
was  not  literature  but  only  what  Bousefield  would 
take  for  it. 

In  that  single  phrase  without  more  ado  I  dis 
covered  his  famous  remedy.  What  was  before 
him  for  the  future  was  not  to  do  his  work  but  to 
do  what  somebody  else  would  take  for  it.  I  had 
the  question  out  with  him  on  the  next  opportu 
nity,  and  of  all  the  lively  discussions  into  which 
we  had  been  destined  to  drift  it  lingers  in  my 
mind  as  the  liveliest.  This  was  not,  I  hasten  to 
add,  because  I  disputed  his  conclusions  :  it  was 
an  effect  of  the  very  force  with  which,  when  I 


THE  NEXT  TIME  223 

had  fathomed  his  wretched  premises,  I  took  them 
to  my  soul.  It  was  very  well  to  talk  with  Jane 
Highmore  about  his  standing  alone:  the  eminent 
relief  of  this  position  had  brought  him  to  the 
verge  of  ruin.  Several  persons  admired  his 
books  —  nothing  was  less  contestable  ;  but  they 
appeared  to  have  a  mortal  objection  to  acquir 
ing  them  by  subscription  or  by  purchase  :  they 
begged  or  borrowed  or  stole,  they  delegated  one 
of  the  party  perhaps  to  commit  the  volumes  to 
memory  and  repeat  them,  like  the  bards  of  old, 
to  listening  multitudes.  Some  ingenious  theory 
was  required  at  any  rate  to  account  for  the  in 
exorable  limits  of  his  circulation.  It  wasn't  a 
thing  for  five  people  to  live  on ;  therefore  either 
the  objects  circulated  must  change  their  nature 
or  the  organisms  to  be  nourished  must.  The 
former  change  was  perhaps  the  easier  to  consider 
first.  Limbert  considered  it  with  extraordinary 
ingenuity  from  that  time  on,  and  the  ingenuity, 
greater  even  than  any  I  had  yet  had  occasion  to 
admire  in  him,  made  the  whole  next  stage  of  his 
career  rich  in  curiosity  and  suspense. 

"  I  have  been  butting  my  skull  against  a  wall," 
he  had  said  in  those  hours  of  confidence ;  "  and, 
to  be  as  sublime  a  blockhead,  if  you'll  allow  me 


224  EMBARRASSMENTS 

the  word,  you,  my  dear  fellow,  have  kept  sound 
ing  the  charge.  We've  sat  prating  here  of  *  suc 
cess,'  heaven  help  us,  like  chanting  monks  in  a 
cloister,  hugging  the  sweet  delusion  that  it  lies 
somewhere  in  the  work  itself,  in  the  expression, 
as  you  said,  of  one's  subject  or  the  intensification, 
as  somebody  else  somewhere  says,  of  one's  note. 
One  has  been  going  on  in  short  as  if  the  only 
thing  to  do  were  to  accept  the  law  of  one's  talent 
and  thinking  that  if  certain  consequences  didn't 
follow  it  was  only  because  one  wasn't  logical 
enough.  My  disaster  has  served  me  right  —  I 
mean  for  using  that  ignoble  word  at  all.  It's 
a  mere  distributor's,  a  mere  hawker's  word. 
What  is  '  success '  anyhow  ?  When  a  book's 
right,  it's  right  —  shame  to  it  surely  if  it  isn't. 
When  it  sells  it  sells  —  it  brings  money  like 
potatoes  or  beer.  If  there's  dishonour  one  way 
and  inconvenience  the  other,  it  certainly  is  com 
fortable,  but  it  as  certainly  isn't  glorious  to  have 
escaped  them.  People  of  delicacy  don't  brag 
either  about  their  probity  or  about  their  luck. 
Success  be  hanged !  —  I  want  to  sell.  It's  a 
question  of  life  and  death.  I  must  study  the 
way.  I've  studied  too  much  the  other  way  — 
I  know  the  other  way  now,  every  inch  of  it.  I 


THE  NEXT  TIME  225 

must  cultivate  the  market  —  it's  a  science  like 
another.  I  must  go  in  for  an  infernal  cunning. 
It  will  be  very  amusing,  I  foresee  that ;  I  shall 
lead  a  dashing  life  and  drive  a  roaring  trade. 
I  haven't  been  obvious  —  I  must  be  obvious.  I 
haven't  been  popular  —  I  must  be  popular.  It's 
another  art  —  or  perhaps  it  isn't  an  art  at  all. 
It's  something  else ;  one  must  find  out  what  it 
is.  Is  it  something  awfully  queer  ?  —  you  blush  ! 
—  something  barely  decent  ?  All  the  greater 
incentive  to  curiosity !  Curiosity's  an  immense 
motive;  we  shall  have  tremendous  sport.  They 
all  do  it ;  it's  only  a  question  of  how.  Of  course 
I've  everything  to  unlearn ;  but  what  is  life,  as 
Jane  Highmore  says,  but  a  lesson?  I  must  get 
all  I  can,  all  she  can  give  me,  from  Jane.  She 
can't  explain  herself  much ;  she's  all  intuition ; 
her  processes  are  obscure ;  it's  the  spirit  that 
swoops  down  and  catches  her  up.  But  I  must 
study  her  reverently  in  her  works.  Yes,  you've 
defied  me  before,  but  now  my  loins  are  girded  : 
I  declare  I'll  read  one  of  them  —  I  really  will : 
I'll  put  it  through  if  I  perish  !  " 

I  won't  pretend  that  he  made  all  these  remarks 
at   once ;    but   there  wasn't   one   that   he   didn't 
make  at  one  time  or  another,  for  suggestion  and 
Q 


226  EMBARRASSMENTS 

occasion  were  plentiful  enough,  his  life  being  now 
given  up  altogether  to  his  new  necessity.  It 
wasn't  a  question  of  his  having  or  not  having, 
as  they  say,  my  intellectual  sympathy  :  the  brute 
force  of  the  pressure  left  no  room  for  judgment ; 
it  made  all  emotion  a  mere  recourse  to  the  spy 
glass.  I  watched  him  as  I  should  have  watched 
a  long  race  or  a  long  chase,  irresistibly  siding 
with  him  but  much  occupied  with  the  calculation 
of  odds.  I  confess  indeed  that  my  heart,  for  the 
endless  stretch  that  he  covered  so  fast,  was  often 
in  my  throat.  I  saw  him  peg  away  over  the  sun- 
dappled  plain,  I  saw  him  double  and  wind  and 
gain  and  lose  ;  and  all  the  while  I  secretly  enter 
tained  a  conviction.  I  wanted  him  to  feed  his 
many  mouths,  but  at  the  bottom  of  all  things  was 
my  sense  that  if  he  should  succeed  in  doing  so 
in  this  particular  way  I  should  think  less  well 
of  him.  Now  I  had  an  absolute  terror  of  that. 
Meanwhile  so  far  as  I  could  I  backed  him  up, 
I  helped  him  :  all  the  more  that  I  had  warned 
him  immensely  at  first,  smiled  with  a  compassion 
it  was  very  good  of  him  not  to  have  found  ex 
asperating  over  the  complacency  of  his  assump 
tion  that  a  man  could  escape  from  himself.  Ray 
Limbert  at  all  events  would  certainly  never 


THE  NEXT  TIME  227 

escape ;  but  one  could  make  believe  for  him, 
make  believe  very  hard  —  an  undertaking  in 
which  at  first  Mr.  Bousefield  was  visibly  a  bless 
ing.  Limbert  was  delightful  on  the  business  of 
this  being  at  last  my  chance  too  —  my  chance,  so 
miraculously  vouchsafed,  to  appear  with  a  certain 
luxuriance.  He  didn't  care  how  often  he  printed 
me,  for  wasn't  it  exactly  in  my  direction  Mr. 
Bousefield  held  that  the  cat  was  going  to  jump  ? 
This  was  the  least  he  could  do  for  me.  I  might 
write  on  anything  I  liked  —  on  anything  at  least 
but  Mr.  Limbert's  second  manner.  He  didn't 
wish  attention  strikingly  called  to  his  second 
manner ;  it  was  to  operate  insidiously ;  people 
were  to  be  left  to  believe  they  had  discovered  it 
long  ago.  "  Ralph  Limbert  ?  Why,  when  did  we 
ever  live  without  him  ?  "  —  that's  what  he  wanted 
them  to  say.  Besides,  they  hated  manners  — 
let  sleeping  dogs  lie.  His  understanding  with 
Mr.  Bousefield  —  on  which  he  had  had  not  at  all 
to  insist ;  it  was  the  excellent  man  who  insisted 
—  was  that  he  should  run  one  of  his  beautiful 
stories  in  the  magazine.  As  to  the  beauty  of  his 
story  however  Limbert  was  going  to  be  less  ad 
mirably  straight  than  as  to  the  beauty  of  every 
thing  else.  That  was  another  reason  why  I 


228  EMBARRASSMENTS 

mustn't  write  about  his  new  line  :  Mr.  Bousefield 
was  not  to  be  too  definitely  warned  that  such  a  pe 
riodical  was  exposed  to  prostitution.  By  the  time 
he  should  find  it  out  for  himself  the  public — le 
gros  public  —  would  have  bitten,  and  then  perhaps 
he  would  be  conciliated  and  forgive.  Everything 
else  would  be  literary  in  short,  and  above  all  I 
would  be  ;  only  Ralph  Limbert  wouldn't  —  he'd 
chuck  up  the  whole  thing  sooner.  He'd  be 
vulgar,  he'd  be  rudimentary,  he'd  be  atrocious  : 
he'd  be  elaborately  what  he  hadn't  been  before. 
I  duly  noticed  that  he  had  more  trouble  in 
making  "  everything  else  "  literary  than  he  had 
at  first  allowed  for  ;  but  this  was  largely  counter 
acted  by  the  ease  with  which  he  was  able  to  ob 
tain  that  his  mark  should  not  be  overshot.  He 
had  taken  well  to  heart  the  old  lesson  of  the  Bea 
con  ;  he  remembered  that  he  was  after  all  there  to 
keep  his  contributors  down  much  rather  than  to 
keep  them  up.  I  thought  at  times  that  he  kept 
them  down  a  trifle  too  far,  but  he  assured  me  that 
I  needn't  be  nervous  :  he  had  his  limit  —  his  limit 
was  inexorable.  He  would  reserve  pure  vulgar 
ity  for  his  serial,  over  which  he  was  sweating 
blood  and  water  ;  elsewhere  it  should  be  qualified 
by  the  prime  qualification,  the  mediocrity  that 


THE   NEXT   TIME  229 

attaches,  that  endears.  Bousefield,  he  allowed, 
was  proud,  was  difficult:  nothing  was  really  good 
enough  for  him  but  the  middling  good ;  but  he 
himself  was  prepared  for  adverse  comment,  reso 
lute  for  his  noble  course.  Hadn't  Limbert  more 
over  in  the  event  of  a  charge  of  laxity  from 
headquarters  the  great  strength  of  being  able  to 
point  to  my  contributions  ?  Therefore  I  must  let 
myself  go,  I  must  abound  in  my  peculiar  sense,  I 
must  be  a  resource  in  case  of  accidents.  Lim- 
bert's  vision  of  accidents  hovered  mainly  over  the 
sudden  awakening  of  Mr.  Bousefield  to  the  stuff 
that  in  the  department  of  fiction  his  editor  was 
palming  off.  He  would  then  have  to  confess  in 
all  humility  that  this  was  not  what  the  good  old 
man  wanted,  but  I  should  be  all  the  more  there 
as  a  salutary  specimen.  I  would  cross  the  scent 
with  something  showily  impossible,  splendidly 
unpopular  —  I  must  be  sure  to  have  something 
on  hand.  I  always  had  plenty  on  hand  —  poor 
Limbert  needn't  have  worried :  the  magazine  was 
forearmed  each  month  by  my  care  with  a  retort  to 
any  possible  accusation  of  trifling  with  Mr.  Bouse- 
field's  standard.  He  had  admitted  to  Limbert, 
after  much  consideration  indeed,  that  he  was  pre 
pared  to  be  perfectly  human ;  but  he  had  added 


230  EMBARRASSMENTS 

that  he  was  not  prepared  for  an  abuse  of  this  ad 
mission.  The  thing  in  the  world  I  think  I  least 
felt  myself  was  an  abuse,  even  though  (as  I  had 
never  mentioned  to  my  friendly  editor)  I  too  had 
my  project  for  a  bigger  reverberation.  I  daresay 
I  trusted  mine  more  than  I  trusted  Limbert's  ;  at 
all  events  the  golden  mean  in  which  in  the  special 
case  he  saw  his  salvation  as  an  editor  was  some 
thing  I  should  be  most  sure  of  if  I  were  to  exhibit 
it  myself.  I  exhibited  it  month  after  month  in 
the  form  of  a  monstrous  levity,  only  praying 
heaven  that  my  editor  might  now  not  tell  me,  as 
he  had  so  often  told  me,  that  my  result  was  aw 
fully  good.  I  knew  what  that  would  signify  — 
it  would  signify,  sketchily  speaking,  disaster. 
What  he  did  tell  me  heartily  was  that  it  was  just 
what  his  game  required:  his  new  line  had  brought 
with  it  an  earnest  assumption — earnest  save 
when  we  privately  laughed  about  it  —  of  the  locu 
tions  proper  to  real  bold  enterprise.  If  I  tried  to 
keep  him  in  the  dark  even  as  he  kept  Mr.  Bouse- 
field  there  was  nothing  to  show  that  I  was  not 
tolerably  successful :  each  case  therefore  presented 
a  promising  analogy  for  the  other.  He  never 
noticed  my  descent,  and  it  was  accordingly  pos 
sible  that  Mr.  Bousefield  would  never  notice  his. 


THE   NEXT  TIME  231 

But  would  nobody  notice  it  at  all  ?  —  that  was  a 
question  that  added  a  prospective  zest  to  one's 
possession  of  a  critical  sense.  So  much  depended 
upon  it  that  I  was  rather  relieved  than  otherwise 
not  to  know  the  answer  too  soon.  I  waited  in 
fact  a  year  —  the  year  for  which  Limbert  had 
cannily  engaged  on  trial  with  Mr.  Bousefield  ; 
the  year  as  to  which  through  the  same  sharpened 
shrewdness  it  had  been  conveyed  in  the  agree 
ment  between  them  that  Mr.  Bousefield  was  not 
to  intermeddle.  It  had  been  Limbert's  general 
prayer  that  we  would  during  this  period  let  him 
quite  alone.  His  terror  of  my  direct  rays  was  a 
droll,  dreadful  force  that  always  operated  :  he  ex 
plained  it  by  the  fact  that  I  understood  him  too 
well,  expressed  too  much  of  his  intention,  saved 
him  too  little  from  himself.  The  less  he  was 
saved  the  more  he  didn't  sell :  I  literally  inter 
preted,  and  that  was  simply  fatal. 

I  held  my  breath  accordingly ;  I  did  more  —  I 
closed  my  eyes,  I  guarded  my  treacherous  ears. 
He  induced  several  of  us  to  do  that  (of  such 
devotions  we  were  capable)  so  that  not  even 
glancing  at  the  thing  from  month  to  month, 
and  having  nothing  but  his  shamed,  anxious  si 
lence  to  go  by,  I  participated  only  vaguely  in 


232  EMBARRASSMENTS 

the  little  hum  that  surrounded  his  act  of  sacri 
fice.  It  was  blown  about  the  town  that  the 
public  would  be  surprised ;  it  was  hinted,  it  was 
printed  that  he  was  making  a  desperate  bid. 
His  new  work  was  spoken  of  as  umore  calcu 
lated  for  general  acceptance."  These  tidings 
produced  in  some  quarters  much  reprobation, 
and  nowhere  more,  I  think,  than  on  the  part  of 
certain  persons  who  had  never  read  a  word  of 
him,  or  assuredly  had  never  spent  a  shilling 
on  him,  and  who  hung  for  hours  over  the  other 
attractions  of  the  newspaper  that  announced  his 
abasement.  So  much  asperity  cheered  me  a  little 
—  seemed  to  signify  that  he  might  really  be  do 
ing  something.  On  the  other  hand  I  had  a  dis 
tinct  alarm ;  some  one  sent  me  for  some  alien 
reason  an  American  journal  (containing  frankly 
more  than  that  source  of  affliction)  in  which  was 
quoted  a  passage  from  our  friend's  last  instal 
ment.  The  passage  —  I  couldn't  for  my  life  help 
reading  it  —  was  simply  superb.  Ah,  he  would 
have  to  move  to  the  country  if  that  was  the 
worst  he  could  do  !  It  gave  me  a  pang  to  see 
how  little  after  all  he  had  improved  since  the 
days  of  his  competition  with  Pat  Moyle.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  passage  quoted  in  the  Amer- 


THE  NEXT  TIME  233 

lean  paper  that  Pat  would  for  a  moment  have 
owned.  During  the  last  weeks,  as  the  oppor 
tunity  of  reading  the  complete  thing  drew  near, 
one's  suspense  was  barely  endurable,  and  I  shall 
never  forget  the  July  evening  on  which  I  put 
it  to  rout.  Coming  home  to  dinner  I  found  the 
two  volumes  on  my  table,  and  I  sat  up  with 
them  half  the  night,  dazed,  bewildered,  rubbing 
my  eyes,  wondering  at  the  monstrous  joke.  Was 
it  a  monstrous  joke,  his  second  manner — was 
this  the  new  line,  the  desperate  bid,  the  scheme 
for  more  general  acceptance  and  the  remedy  for 
material  failure  ?  Had  he  made  a  fool  of  all  his 
following,  or  had  he  most  injuriously  made  a 
still  bigger  fool  of  himself?  Obvious?  —  where 
the  deuce  was  it  obvious?  Popular?  —  how  on 
earth  could  it  be  popular  ?  The  thing  was  charm 
ing  with  all  his  charm  and  powerful  with  all 
his  power :  it  was  an  unscrupulous,  an  unspar 
ing,  a  shameless,  merciless  masterpiece.  It  was, 
no  doubt,  like  the  old  letters  to  the  Beacon,  the 
worst  he  could  do ;  but  the  perversity  of  the 
effort,  even  though  heroic,  had  been  frustrated 
by  the  purity  of  the  gift.  Under  what  illusion 
had  he  laboured,  with  what  wavering,  treacherous 
compass  had  he  steered?  His  honour  was  invio- 


234  EMBARRASSMENTS 

lable,  his  measurements  were  all  wrong.  I  was 
thrilled  with  the  whole  impression  and  with  all 
that  came  crowding  in  its  train.  It  was  too 
grand  a  collapse  —  it  was  too  hideous  a  triumph  ; 
I  exalted  almost  with  tears  —  I  lamented  with  a 
strange  delight.  Indeed  as  the  short  night  waned 
and,  threshing  about  in  my  emotion,  I  fidgeted 
to  my  high-perched  window  for  a  glimpse  of  the 
summer  dawn,  I  became  at  last  aware  that  I  was 
staring  at  it  out  of  eyes  that  had  compassionately 
and  admiringly  filled.  The  eastern  sky,  over  the 
London  housetops,  had  a  wonderful  tragic  crim 
son.  That  was  the  colour  of  his  magnificent 
mistake. 


IV 


IF  something  less  had  depended  on  my  impres 
sion  I  daresay  I  should  have  communicated  it  as 
soon  as  I  had  swallowed  my  breakfast;  but  the 
case  was  so  embarrassing  that  I  spent  the  first 
half  of  the  day  in  reconsidering  it,  dipping  into 
the  book  again,  almost  feverishly  turning  its 
leaves  and  trying  to  extract  from  them,  for  my 
friend's  benefit,  some  symptom  of  reassurance, 
some  ground  for  felicitation.  This  rash  chal 
lenge  had  consequences  merely  dreadful;  the 
wretched  volumes,  imperturbable  and  impeccable, 
with  their  shyer  secrets  and  their  second  line  of 
defence,  were  like  a  beautiful  woman  more  de 
nuded  or  a  great  symphony  on  a  new  hearing. 
There  was  something  quite  sinister  in  the  way 
they  stood  up  to  me.  I  couldn't  however  be 
dumb  —  that  was  to  give  the  wrong  tinge  to  my 
disappointment ;  so  that  later  in  the  afternoon, 
taking  my  courage  in  both  hands,  I  approached 

235 


236  EMBARRASSMENTS 

with  a  vain  tortuosity  poor  Limbert's  door.  A 
smart  victoria  waited  before  it  in  which  from  the 
bottom  of  the  street  I  saw  that  a  lady  who  had 
apparently  just  issued  from  the  house  was  set 
tling  herself.  I  recognised  Jane  Highmore  and 
instantly  paused  till  she  should  drive  down  to 
me.  She  presently  met  me  half-way  and  as  soon 
as  she  saw  me  stopped  her  carriage  in  agitation. 
This  was  a  relief  —  it  postponed  a  moment  the 
sight  of  that  pale,  fine  face  of  our  friend's  front 
ing  me  for  the  right  verdict.  I  gathered  from 
the  flushed  eagerness  with  which  Mrs.  Highmore 
asked  me  if  I  had  heard  the  news  that  a  verdict 
of  some  sort  had  already  been  rendered. 

"  What  news  ?  —  about  the  book  ?  " 

"  About  that  horrid  magazine.  They're  shock 
ingly  upset.  He  has  lost  his  position — he  has 
had  a  fearful  flare-up  with  Mr.  Bousefield." 

I  stood  there  blank,  but  not  unaware  in  my 
blankness  of  how  history  repeats  itself.  There 
came  to  me  across  the  years  Maud's  announce 
ment  of  their  ejection  from  the  Beacon,  and 
dimly,  confusedly  the  same  explanation  was  in 
the  air.  This  time  however  I  had  been  on  my 
guard ;  I  had  had  my  suspicion.  "  He  has  made 
it  too  flippant?"  I  found  breath  after  an  instant 
to  inquire. 


THE  NEXT   TIME  237 

Mrs.  Highmore's  vacuity  exceeded  my  own. 
"Too  'flippant'?  He  has  made  it  too  oracular. 
Mr.  Bousefield  says  he  has  killed  it."  Then  per 
ceiving  my  stupefaction  :  "  Don't  you  know  what 
has  happened  ?  "  she  pursued ;  "  isn't  it  because 
in  his  trouble,  poor  love,  he  has  sent  for  you  that 
you've  come?  You've  heard  nothing  at  all? 
Then  you  had  better  know  before  you  see  them. 
Get  in  here  with  me  —  I'll  take  you  a  turn  and 
tell  you."  We  were  close  to  the  Park,  the  Re 
gent's,  and  when  with  extreme  alacrity  I  had 
placed  myself  beside  her  and  the  carriage  had 
begun  to  enter  it  she  went  on  :  "  It  was  what  I 
feared,  you  know.  It  reeked  with  culture.  He 
keyed  it  up  too  high." 

I  felt  myself  sinking  in  the  general  collapse. 
"What  are  you  talking  about?" 

"Why,  about  that  beastly  magazine.  They're 
all  on  the  streets.  I  shall  have  to  take  mamma." 

I  pulled  myself  together.  "What  on  earth 
then  did  Bousefield  want?  He  said  he  wanted 
intellectual  power." 

4 'Yes,  but  Ray  overdid  it." 

"Why,  Bousefield  said  it  was  a  thing  he 
couldn't  overdo." 

"  Well,  Ray  managed :  he  took  Mr.  Bousefield 


238  EMBARRASSMENTS 

too  literally.  It  appears  the  thing  has  been 
doing  dreadfully,  but  the  proprietor  couldn't  say 
anything,  because  he  had  covenanted  to  leave  the 
editor  quite  free.  He  describes  himself  as  hav 
ing  stood  there  in  a  fever  and  seen  his  ship  go 
down.  A  day  or  two  ago  the  year  was  up,  so  he 
could  at  last  break  out.  Maud  says  he  did  break 
out  quite  fearfully ;  he  came  to  the  house  and  let 
poor  Ray  have  it.  Ray  gave  it  to  him  back ;  he 
reminded  him  of  his  own  idea  of  the  way  the  cat 
was  going  to  jump." 

I  gasped  with  dismay.  "  Has  Bousefield  aban 
doned  that  idea?  Isn't  the  cat  going  to  jump  ?" 

Mrs.  Highmore  hesitated.  "It  appears  that 
she  doesn't  seem  in  a  hurry.  Ray  at  any  rate  has 
jumped  too  far  ahead  of  her.  He  should  have 
temporised  a  little,  Mr.  Bousefield  says ;  but  I'm 
beginning  to  think,  you  know,"  said  my  com 
panion,  "that  Ray  can't  temporise."  Fresh  from 
my  emotions  of  the  previous  twenty-four  hours  I 
was  scarcely  in  a  position  to  disagree  with  her. 
"He  published  too  much  pure  thought." 

"Pure  thought?"  I  cried.  "Why,  it  struck 
me  so  often  —  certainly  in  a  due  proportion  of 
cases  —  as  pure  drivel !  " 

"  Oh,  you're   more   keyed   up  than  he !     Mr. 


THE   NEXT   TIME  239 

Bousefield  says  that  of  course  he  wanted  things 
that  were  suggestive  and  clever,  things  that  he 
could  point  to  with  pride.  But  he  contends  that 
Ray  didn't  allow  for  human  weakness.  He  gave 
everything  in  too  stiff  doses." 

Sensibly,  I  fear,  to  my  neighbour  I  winced  at 
her  words  ;  I  felt  a  prick  that  made  me  meditate. 
Then  I  said :  "  Is  that,  by  chance,  the  way  he 
gave  me?"  Mrs.  Highmore  remained  silent  so 
long  that  I  had  somehow  the  sense  of  a  fresh 
pang ;  and  after  a  minute,  turning  in  my  seat, 
I  laid  my  hand  on  her  arm,  fixed  my  eyes  upon 
her  face  and  pursued  pressingly :  "  Do  you  sup 
pose  it  to  be  to  my  '  Occasional  Remarks '  that 
Mr.  Bousefield  refers?" 

At  last  she  met  my  look.  "  Can  you  bear  to 
hear  it?" 

"I  think  I  can  bear  anything  now." 

"  Well  then,  it  was  really  what  I  wanted  to 
give  you  an  inkling  of.  It's  largely  over  you 
that  they've  quarrelled.  Mr.  Bousefield  wants 
him  to  chuck  you." 

I  grabbed  her  arm  again.  "  And  Limbert 
won't?" 

"He  seems  to  cling  to  you.  Mr.  Bousefield 
says  no  magazine  can  afford  you." 


240  EMBARRASSMENTS 

I  gave  a  laugh  that  agitated  the  very  coach 
man.  "  Why,  my  dear  lady,  has  he  any  idea  of 
my  price?" 

"It  isn't  your  price  —  he  says  you're  dear  at 
any  price ;  you  do  so  much  to  sink  the  ship. 
Your  'Remarks'  are  called  'Occasional,'  but 
nothing  could  be  more  deadly  regular :  you're 
there  month  after  month  and  you're  never  any 
where  else.  And  you  supply  no  public  want." 

"I  supply  the  most  delicious  irony." 

"  So  Ray  appears  to  have  declared.  Mr.  Bouse- 
field  says  that's  not  in  the  least  a  public  want. 
No  one  can  make  out  what  you're  talking  about 
and  no  one  would  care  if  he  could.  I'm  only 
quoting  him,  mind." 

"Quote,  quote — if  Limbert  holds  out.  I  think 
I  must  leave  you  now,  please :  I  must  rush  back 
to  express  to  him  what  I  feel." 

"I'll  drive  you  to  his  door.  That  isn't  all," 
said  Mrs.  Highmore.  And  on  the  way,  when  the 
carriage  had  turned,  she  communicated  the  rest. 
"Mr.  Bousefield  really  arrived  with  an  ultima 
tum  :  it  had  the  form  of  something  or  other  by 
Minnie  Meadows." 

"Minnie  Meadows?"     I  was  stupefied. 

"  The  new  lady-humourist  every  one  is  talking 


THE  NEXT  TIME  241 

about.  It's  the  first  of  a  series  of  screaming 
sketches  for  which  poor  Ray  was  to  find  a 
place." 

"  Is  that  Mr.  Bousefield's  idea  of  literature  ?  " 
"No,  but  he  says  it's  the  public's,  and  you've 
got  to  take  some  account  of  the  public.  Aux 
grands  maux  les  grands  remedes.  They  had  a 
tremendous  lot  of  ground  to  make  up,  and  no 
one  would  make  it  up  like  Minnie.  She  would 
be  the  best  concession  they  could  make  to  human 
weakness ;  she  would  strike  at  least  this  note  of 
showing  that  it  was  not  going  to  be  quite  all  — 
well,  all  you.  Now  Ray  draws  the  line  at  Min 
nie  ;  he  won't  stoop  to  Minnie  ;  he  declines  to 
touch,  to  look  at  Minnie.  When  Mr.  Bousefield 
—  rather  imperiously,  I  believe  —  made  Minnie  a 
sine  qud  non  of  his  retention  of  his  post  he  said 
something  rather  violent,  told  him  to  go  to  some 
unmentionable  place  and  take  Minnie  with  him. 
That  of  course  put  the  fat  on  the  fire.  They  had 
really  a  considerable  scene." 

"  So  had  he  with  the  Beacon  man,"  I  musingly 
replied.  "  Poor  dear,  he  seems  born  for  consider 
able  scenes!  It's  on  Minnie,  then,  that  they've 
really  split  ?  "  Mrs.  Highmore  exhaled  her  de 
spair  in  a  sound  which  I  took  for  an  assent,  and 


242  EMBARRASSMENTS 

when  we  had  rolled  a  little  further  I  rather  in- 
consequently  and  to  her  visible  surprise  broke  out 
of  my  reverie.  "It  will  never  do  in  the  world  — 
he  must  stoop  to  Minnie  !  " 

"It's  too  late  —  and  what  I've  told  you  still 
isn't  all.  Mr.  Bousefield  raises  another  objec 
tion." 

"  What  other,  pray  ?  " 

"  Can't  you  guess  ?  " 

I  wondered.     "  No  more  of  Ray's  fiction  ?  " 

"Not  a  line.  That's  something  else  no  maga 
zine  can  stand.  Now  that  his  novel  has  run  its 
course  Mr.  Bousefield  is  distinctly  disappointed." 

I  fairly  bounded  in  my  place.  "  Then  it  may 
do?" 

Mrs.  Highmore  looked  bewildered.  "  Why  so, 
if  he  finds  it  too  dull  ?  " 

"Dull?  Ralph  Limbert?  He's  as  fine  as  a 
needle  !  " 

"  It  comes  to  the  same  thing  —  he  won't  pene 
trate  leather.  Mr.  Bousefield  had  counted  on 
something  that  would,  on  something  that  would 
have  a  wider  acceptance.  Ray  says  he  wants  iron 
pegs."  I  collapsed  again  ;  my  flicker  of  elation 
dropped  to  a  throb  of  quieter  comfort ;  and  after 
a  moment's  silence  I  asked  my  neighbour  if  she 


THE   NEXT  TIME  243 

had  herself  read  the  work  our  friend  had  just  put 
forth.  "  No,"  she  replied,  "  I  gave  him  my  word 
at  the  beginning,  on  his  urgent  request,  that  I 
wouldn't." 

"  Not  even  as  a  book  ?  " 

"He  begged  me  never  to  look  at  it  at  all. 
He  said  he  was  trying  a  low  experiment.  Of 
course  I  knew  what  he  meant  and  I  entreated  him 
to  let  me  just  for  curiosity  take  a  peep.  But 
he  was  firm,  he  declared  he  couldn't  bear  the 
thought  that  a  woman  like  me  should  see  him  in 
the  depths." 

"He's  only,  thank  God,  in  the  depths  of  dis 
tress,"  I  replied.  "  His  experiment's  nothing 
worse  than  a  failure." 

"Then  Bousefield  is  right  —  his  circulation 
won't  budge?" 

"  It  won't  move  one,  as  they  say  in  Fleet 
Street.  The  book  has  extraordinary  beauty." 

"  Poor  duck  —  after  trying  so  hard  !  "  Jane 
Highmore  sighed  with  real  tenderness.  "What 
will  then  become  of  them  ?  " 

I  was  silent  an  instant.  "  You  must  take  your 
mother." 

She  was  silent  too.  "  I  must  speak  of  it  to 
Cecil !  "  she  presently  said.  Cecil  is  Mr.  High- 


244  EMBARRASSMENTS 

more,  who  then  entertained,  I  knew,  strong  views 
on  the  inadjustability  of  circumstances  in  general 
to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  Mrs.  Stannace.  He  held 
it  supremely  happy  that  in  an  important  relation 
she  should  have  met  her  match.  Her  match  was 
Ray  Limbert  —  not  much  of  a  writer  but  a  prac 
tical  man.  "  The  dear  things  still  think,  you 
know,"  my  companion  continued,  "  that  the  book 
will  be  the  beginning  of  their  fortune.  Their 
illusion,  if  you're  right,  will  be  rudely  dispelled." 

"That's  what  makes  me  dread  to  face  them. 
I've  just  spent  with  his  volumes  an  unforgettable 
night.  His  illusion  has  lasted  because  so  many 
of  us  have  been  pledged  till  this  moment  to  turn 
our  faces  the  other  way.  We  haven't  known  the 
truth  and  have  therefore  had  nothing  to  say. 
Now  that  we  do  know  it  indeed  we  have  prac 
tically  quite  as  little.  I  hang  back  from  the 
threshold.  How  can  I  follow  up  with  a  burst 
of  enthusiasm  such  a  catastrophe  as  Mr.  Bouse- 
field's  visit?" 

As  I  turned  uneasily  about  my  neighbour  more 
comfortably  snuggled.  "Well,  I'm  glad  then  I 
haven't  read  him  and  have  nothing  unpleasant  to 
say  !  "  We  had  come  back  to  Limbert's  door, 
and  I  made  the  coachman  stop  short  of  it.  "  But 


THE  NEXT   TIME  245 

he'll  try  again,  with  that  determination  of  his : 
he'll  build  his  hopes  on  the  next  time." 

"  On  what  else  has  he  built  them  from  the  very 
first?  It's  never  the  present  for  him  that  bears 
the  fruit ;  that's  always  postponed  and  for  some 
body  else  :  there  has  always  to  be  another  try. 
I  admit  that  his  idea  of  a  4  new  line '  has  made 
him  try  harder  than  ever.  It  makes  no  differ 
ence,"  I  brooded,  still  timorously  lingering ; 
"his  achievement  of  his  necessity,  his  hope  of  a 
market  will  continue  to  attach  themselves  to  the 
future.  But  the  next  time  will  disappoint  him 
as  each  last  time  has  done — and  then  the  next 
and  the  next  and  the  next !  " 

I  found  myself  seeing  it  all  with  a  clearness 
almost  inspired  :  it  evidently  cast  a  chill  on  Mrs. 
Highmore.  "Then  what  on  earth  will  become 
of  him  ?  "  she  plaintively  asked. 

"I  don't  think  I  particularly  care  what  may 
become  of  Az'm,"  I  returned  with  a  conscious, 
reckless  increase  of  my  exaltation ;  "  I  feel  it 
almost  enough  to  be  concerned  with  what  may 
become  of  one's  enjoyment  of  him.  I  don't  know 
in  short  what  will  become  of  his  circulation ;  I 
am  only  quite  at  my  ease  as  to  what  will  become 
of  his  work.  It  will  simply  keep  all  its  quality. 


246  EMBARRASSMENTS 

He'll  try  again  for  the  common  with  what  he'll 
believe  to  be  a  still  more  infernal  cunning,  and 
again  the  common  will  fatally  elude  him,  for  his 
infernal  cunning  will  have  been  only  his  genius 
in  an  ineffectual  disguise."  We  sat  drawn  up  by 
the  pavement,  facing  poor  Limbert's  future  as  I 
saw  it.  It  relieved  me  in  a  manner  to  know  the 
worst,  and  I  prophesied  with  an  assurance  which 
as  I  look  back  upon  it  strikes  me  as  rather  re 
markable.  "  Que  voulez-vous?"  I  went  on  ;  "you 
can't  make  a  sow's  ear  of  a  silk  purse  !  It's 
grievous  indeed  if  you  like  —  there  are  people 
who  can't  be  vulgar  for  trying.  He  can't  — 
it  wouldn't  come  off,  I  promise  you,  even  once. 
It  takes  more  than  trying  —  it  comes  by  grace. 
It  happens  not  to  be  given  to  Limbert  to  fall.  He 
belongs  to  the  heights  —  he  breathes  there,  he 
lives  there,  and  it's  accordingly  to  the  heights  I 
must  ascend,"  I  said  as  I  took  leave  of  my  con 
ductress,  "  to  carry  him  this  wretched  news  from 
where  we  move  1  " 


A  FEW  months  were  sufficient  to  show  how 
right  I  had  been  about  his  circulation.  It  didn't 
move  one,  as  I  had  said ;  it  stopped  short  in  the 
same  place,  fell  off  in  a  sheer  descent,  like 
some  precipice  gaped  up  at  by  tourists.  The 
public  in  other  words  drew  the  line  for  him  as 
sharply  as  he  had  drawn  it  for  Minnie  Meadows. 
Minnie  has  skipped  with  a  flouncing  caper  over 
his  line,  however;  whereas  the  mark  traced  by 
a  lustier  cudgel  has  been  a  barrier  insurmount 
able  to  Limbert.  Those  next  times  I  had  spoken 
of  to  Jane  Highmore,  I  see  them  simplified  by 
retrocession.  Again  and  again  he  made  his  des 
perate  bid  —  again  and  again  he  tried  to.  His 
rupture  with  Mr.  Bousefield  caused  him,  I  fear, 
in  professional  circles  to  be  thought  imprac 
ticable,  and  I  am  perfectly  aware,  to  speak 
candidly,  that  no  sordid  advantage  ever  accrued 

247 


248  EMBARRASSMENTS 

to  him  from  such  public  patronage  of  my  per 
formances  as  he  had  occasionally  been  in  a  posi 
tion  to  offer.  I  reflect  for  my  comfort  that  any 
injury  I  may  have  done  him  by  untimely  applica 
tion  of  a  faculty  of  analysis  which  could  point 
to  no  converts  gained  by  honourable  exercise  was 
at  least  equalled  by  the  injury  he  did  himself. 
More  than  once,  as  I  have  hinted,  I  held  my 
tongue  at  his  request,  but  my  frequent  plea  that 
such  favours  weren't  politic  never  found  him, 
when  in  other  connections  there  was  an  oppor 
tunity  to  give  me  a  lift,  anything  but  indifferent 
to  the  danger  of  the  association.  He  let  them 
have  me  in  a  word  whenever  he  could ;  sometimes 
in  periodicals  in  which  he  had  credit,  sometimes 
only  at  dinner.  He  talked  about  me  when  he 
couldn't  get  me  in,  but  it  was  always  part  of 
the  bargain  that  I  shouldn't  make  him  a  topic. 
"  How  can  I  successfully  serve  you  if  you  do  ?  " 
he  used  to  ask :  he  was  more  afraid  than  I 
thought  he  ought  to  have  been  of  the  charge  of 
tit  for  tat.  I  didn't  care,  for  I  never  could  dis 
tinguish  tat  from  tit ;  but  as  I  have  intimated 
I  dropped  into  silence  really  more  than  anything 
else  because  there  was  a  certain  fascinated  ob 
servation  of  his  course  which  was  quite  testimony 


THE  NEXT   TIME  249 

enough  and  to  which  in  this  huddled  conclusion 
of  it  he  practically  reduced  me. 

I  see  it  all  foreshortened,  his  wonderful  re 
mainder  —  see  it  from  the  end  backward,  with  the 
direction  widening  toward  me  as  if  on  a  level 
with  the  eye.  The  migration  to  the  country 
promised  him  at  first  great  things  —  smaller  ex 
penses,  larger  leisure,  conditions  eminently  con 
ducive  on  each  occasion  to  the  possible  triumph 
of  the  next  time.  Mrs.  Stannace,  who  altogether 
disapproved  of  it,  gave  as  one  of  her  reasons  that 
her  son-in-law,  living  mainly  in  a  village  on  the 
edge  of  a  goose-green,  would  be  deprived  of  that 
contact  with  the  great  world  which  was  indis 
pensable  to  the  painter  of  manners.  She  had  the 
showiest  arguments  for  keeping  him  in  touch,  as 
she  called  it,  with  good  society ;  wishing  to  know 
with  some  force  where,  from  the  moment  he 
ceased  to  represent  it  from  observation,  the  nov 
elist  could  be  said  to  be.  In  London  fortunately 
a  clever  man  was  just  a  clever  man ;  there  were 
charming  houses  in  which  a  person  of  Ray's  un 
doubted  ability,  even  though  without  the  knack  of 
making  the  best  use  of  it,  could  always  be  sure  of 
a  quiet  corner  for  watching  decorously  the  social 
kaleidoscope.  But  the  kaleidoscope  of  the  goose- 


250  EMBARRASSMENTS 

green,  what  in  the  world  was  that,  and  what 
such  delusive  thrift  as  drives  about  the  land 
(with  a  fearful  account  for  flys  from  the  inn) 
to  leave  cards  on  the  country  magnates?  This 
solicitude  for  Limbert's  subject-matter  was  the 
specious  colour  with  which,  deeply  determined 
not  to  affront  mere  tolerance  in  a  cottage,  Mrs. 
Stannace  overlaid  her  indisposition  to  place  her 
self  under  the  heel  of  Cecil  Highmore.  She  knew 
that  he  ruled  Upstairs  as  well  as  down,  and  she 
clung  to  the  fable  of  the  association  of  interests 
in  the  north  of  London.  The  Highmores  had 
a  better  address  —  they  lived  now  in  Stanhope 
Gardens ;  but  Cecil  was  fearfully  artful  —  he 
wouldn't  hear  of  an  association  of  interests  nor 
treat  with  his  mother-in-law  save  as  a  visitor. 
She  didn't  like  false  positions ;  but  on  the  other 
hand  she  didn't  like  the  sacrifice  of  everything 
she  was  accustomed  to.  Her  universe  at  all 
events  was  a  universe  full  of  card-leavings  and 
charming  houses,  and  it  was  fortunate  that  she 
couldn't  Upstairs  catch  the  sound  of  the  doom 
to  which,  in  his  little  grey  den,  describing  to  me 
his  diplomacy,  Limbert  consigned  alike  the  coun 
try  magnates  and  the  opportunities  of  London. 
Despoiled  of  every  guarantee  she  went  to  Stan- 


THE  NEXT  TIME  251 

hope  Gardens  like  a  mere  maidservant,  with  re 
strictions  on  her  very  luggage,  while  during  the 
year  that  followed  this  upheaval  Limbert,  stroll 
ing  with  me  on  the  goose -green,  to  which  I  often 
ran  down,  played  extravagantly  over  the  theme 
that  with  what  he  was  now  going  in  for  it  was 
a  positive  comfort  not  to  have  the  social  kaleido 
scope.  With  a  cold-blooded  trick  in  view  what 
had  life  or  manners  or  the  best  society  or  flys 
from  the  inn  to  say  to  the  question?  It  was  as 
good  a  place  as  another  to  play  his  new  game. 
He  had  found  a  quieter  corner  than  any  corner 
of  the  great  world,  and  a  damp  old  house  at 
sixpence  a  year,  which,  beside  leaving  him  all 
his  margin  to  educate  his  children,  would  allow 
of  the  supreme  luxury  of  his  frankly  presenting 
himself  as  a  poor  man.  This  was  a  convenience 
that  ces  dames,  as  he  called  them,  had  never  yet 
fully  permitted  him. 

It  rankled  in  me  at  first  to  see  his  reward  so 
meagre,  his  conquest  so  mean  ;  but  the  simplifi 
cation  effected  had  a  charm  that  I  finally  felt  °.  it 
was  a  forcing-house  for  the  three  or  four  other 
fine  miscarriages  to  which  his  scheme  was  evi 
dently  condemned.  I  limited  him  to  three  or 
four,  having  had  my  sharp  impression,  in  spite  of 


252  EMBARRASSMENTS 

the  perpetual  broad  joke  of  the  thing,  that  a 
spring  had  really  snapped  in  him  on  the  occasion 
of  that  deeply  disconcerting  sequel  to  the  episode 
of  his  editorship.  He  never  lost  his  sense  of  the 
grotesque  want,  in  the  difference  made,  of  ade 
quate  relation  to  the  effort  that  had  been  the 
intensest  of  his  life.  He  had  from  that  moment 
a  charge  of  shot  in  him,  and  it  slowly  worked  its 
way  to  a  vital  part.  As  he  met  his  embarrass 
ments  each  year  with  his  punctual  false  remedy  I 
wondered  periodically  where  he  found  the  energy 
to  return  to  the  attack.  He  did  it  every  time 
with  a  rage  more  blanched,  but  it  was  clear  to  me 
that  the  tension  must  finally  snap  the  cord.  We 
got  again  and  again  the  irrepressible  work  of  art, 
but  what  did  "he  get,  poor  man,  who  wanted  some 
thing  so  different  ?  There  were  likewise  odder 
questions  than  this  in  the  matter,  phenomena 
more  curious  and  mysteries  more  puzzling,  which 
often  for  sympathy  if  not  for  illumination  I  inti 
mately  discussed  with  Mrs.  Limbert.  She  had 
her  burdens,  dear  lady  :  after  the  removal  from 
London  and  a  considerable  interval  she  twice 
again  became  a  mother.  Mrs.  Stannace  too,  in 
a  more  restricted  sense,  exhibited  afresh,  in  rela 
tion  to  the  home  she  had  abandoned,  the  same 


THE  NEXT  TIME  253 

exemplary  character.  In  her  poverty  of  guaran 
tees  at  Stanhope  Gardens  there  had  been  least  of 
all,  it  appeared,  a  proviso  that  she  shouldn't  resent 
fully  revert  again  from  Goneril  to  Regan.  She 
came  down  to  the  goose-green  like  Lear  himself, 
with  fewer  knights,  or  at  least  baronets,  and  the 
joint  household  was  at  last  patched  up.  It  fell  to 
pieces  and  was  put  together  on  various  occasions 
before  Ray  Limbert  died.  He  was  ridden  to  the 
end  by  the  superstition  that  he  had  broken  up 
Mrs.  Stannace's  original  home  on  pretences  that 
had  proved  hollow  and  that  if  he  hadn't  given 
Maud  what  she  might  have  had  he  could  at  least 
give  her  back  her  mother.  I  was  always  sure  that 
a  sense  of  the  compensations  he  owed  was  half  the 
motive  of  the  dogged  pride  with  which  he  tried 
to  wake  up  the  libraries.  I  believed  Mrs.  Stan- 
nace  still  had  money,  though  she  pretended  that, 
called  upon  at  every  turn  to  retrieve  deficits,  she 
had  long  since  poured  it  into  the  general  fund. 
This  conviction  haunted  me  ;  I  suspected  her  of 
secret  hoards,  and  I  said  to  myself  that  she 
couldn't  be  so  infamous  as  not  some  day  on  her 
deathbed  to  leave  everything  to  her  less  opulent 
daughter.  My  compassion  for  the  Limberts  led 
me  to  hover  perhaps  indiscreetly  round  that  clos- 


254  EMBARRASSMENTS 

ing  scene,  to  dream  of  some  happy  time  when  such 
an  accession  of  means  would  make  up  a  little  for 
their  present  penury. 

This  however  was  crude  comfort,  as  in  the  first 
place  I  had  nothing  definite  to  go  by  and  in  the 
second  I  held  it  for  more  and  more  indicated  that 
Ray  wouldn't  outlive  her.  I  never  ventured  to 
sound  him  as  to  what  in  this  particular  he  hoped 
or  feared,  for  after  the  crisis  marked  by  his  leav 
ing  London  I  had  new  scruples  about  suffering 
him  to  be  reminded  of  where  he  fell  short.  The 
poor  man  was  in  truth  humiliated,  and  there  were 
things  as  to  which  that  kept  us  both  silent.  In 
proportion  as  he  tried  more  fiercely  for  the  mar 
ket  the  old  plaintiff  arithmetic,  fertile  in  jokes, 
dropped  from  our  conversation.  We  joked  im 
mensely  still  about  the  process,  but  our  treat 
ment  of  the  results  became  sparing  and  superficial. 
He  talked  as  much  as  ever,  with  monstrous  arts 
and  borrowed  hints,  of  the  traps  he  kept  setting, 
but  we  all  agreed  to  take  merely  for  granted  that 
the  animal  was  caught.  This  propriety  had 
really  dawned  upon  me  the  day  that  after  Mr. 
Bousefield's  visit  Mrs.  Highmore  put  me  down 
at  his  door.  Mr.  Bousefield  in  that  juncture  had 
been  served  up  to  me  anew,  but  after  we  had 


THE  NEXT  TIME  255 

disposed  of  him  we  came  to  the  book,  which  I 
was  obliged  to  confess  I  had  already  rushed 
through.  It  was  from  this  moment  —  the  mo 
ment  at  which  my  terrible  impression  of  it  had 
blinked  out  at  his  anxious  query  —  that  the 
image  of  his  scared  face  was  to  abide  with  me. 
I  couldn't  attenuate  then  —  the  cat  was  out  of  the 
bag ;  but  later,  each  of  the  next  times,  I  did,  I  ac 
knowledge,  attenuate.  We  all  did  religiously,  so 
far  as  was  possible  ;  we  cast  ingenious  ambiguities 
over  the  strong  places,  the  beauties  that  betrayed 
him  most,  and  found  ourselves  in  the  queer  position 
of  admirers  banded  to  mislead  a  confiding  artist. 
If  we  stifled  our  cheers  however  and  dissimulated 
our  joy  our  fond  hypocrisy  accomplished  little,  for 
Limbert's  finger  was  on  a  pulse  that  told  a  plainer 
story.  It  was  a  satisfaction  to  have  secured  a 
greater  freedom  with  his  wife,  who  at  last,  much 
to  her  honour,  entered  into  the  conspiracy  and 
whose  sense  of  responsibility  was  flattered  by  the 
frequency  of  our  united  appeal  to  her  for  some 
answer  to  the  marvellous  riddle.  We  had  all 
turned  it  over  till  we  were  tired  of  it,  threshing 
out  the  question  why  the  note  he  strained  every 
chord  to  pitch  for  common  ears  should  invariably 
insist  on  addressing  itself  to  the  angels.  Being, 


256  EMBARRASSMENTS 

as  it  were,  ourselves  the  angels  we  had  only  a 
limited  quarrel  in  each  case  with  the  event ;  but 
its  inconsequent  character,  given  the  forces  set 
in  motion,  was  peculiarly  baffling.  It  was  like 
an  interminable  sum  that  wouldn't  come  straight ; 
nobody  had  the  time  to  handle  so  many  figures. 
Limbert  gathered,  to  make  his  pudding,  dry  bones 
and  dead  husks ;  how  then  was  one  to  formulate 
the  law  that  made  the  dish  prove  a  feast  ?  What 
was  the  cerebral  treachery  that  defied  his  own 
vigilance  ?  There  was  some  obscure  interference 
of  taste,  some  obsession  of  the  exquisite.  All  one 
could  say  was  that  genius  was  a  fatal  disturber 
or  that  the  unhappy  man  had  no  effectual  flair. 
When  he  went  abroad  to  gather  garlic  he  came 
home  with  heliotrope. 

I  hasten  to  add  that  if  Mrs.  Limbert  was  not 
directly  illuminating  she  was  yet  rich  in  anecdote 
and  example,  having  found  a  refuge  from  mystifi 
cation  exactly  where  the  rest  of  us  had  found  it, 
in  a  more  devoted  embrace  and  the  sense  of  a 
finer  glory.  Her  disappointments  and  event 
ually  her  privations  had  been  many,  her  disci 
pline  severe;  but  she  had  ended  by  accepting 
the  long  grind  of  life  and  was  now  quite  willing 
to  take  her  turn  at  the  mill.  She  was  essentially 


THE   NEXT   TIME  257 

one  of  us  —  she  always  understood.  Touching 
and  admirable  at  the  last,  when  through  the 
unmistakable  change  in  Limbert's  health  her 
troubles  were  thickest,  was  the  spectacle  of  the 
particular  pride  that  she  wouldn't  have  ex 
changed  for  prosperity.  She  had  said  to  me 
once  —  only  once,  in  a  gloomy  hour  in  London 
days  when  things  were  not  going  at  all  —  that 
one  really  had  to  think  him  a  very  great  man 
because  if  one  didn't  one  would  be  rather 
ashamed  of  him.  She  had  distinctly  felt  it  at 
first  —  and  in  a  very  tender  place  —  that  almost 
every  one  passed  him  on  the  road ;  but  I  believe 
that  in  these  final  years  she  would  almost  have 
been  ashamed  of  him  if  he  had  suddenly  gone 
into  editions.  It  is  certain  indeed  that  her 
complacency  was  not  subjected  to  that  shock. 
She  would  have  liked  the  money  immensely,  but 
she  would  have  missed  something  she  had  taught 
herself  to  regard  as  rather  rare.  There  is  an 
other  remark  I  remember  her  making,  a  remark 
to  the  effect  that  of  course  if  she  could  have 
chosen  she  would  have  liked  him  to  be  Shake 
speare  or  Scott,  but  that  failing  this  she  was 
very  glad  he  wasn't  —  well,  she  named  the  two 
gentlemen,  but  I  won't.  I  daresay  she  some- 


258  EMBARRASSMENTS 

times  laughed  out  to  escape  an  alternative.  She 
contributed  passionately  to  the  capture  of  the 
second  manner,  foraging  for  him  further  afield 
than  he  could  conveniently  go,  gleaning  in  the 
barest  stubble,  picking  up  shreds  to  build  the 
nest  and  in  particular  in  the  study  of  the  great 
secret  of  how,  as  we  always  said,  they  all  did 
it  laying  waste  the  circulating  libraries.  If 
Limbert  had  a  weakness  he  rather  broke  down 
in  his  reading.  It  was  fortunately  not  till  after 
the  appearance  of  The  Hidden  Heart  that  he 
broke  down  in  everything  else.  He  had  had 
rheumatic  fever  in  the  spring,  when  the  book 
was  but  half  finished,  and  this  ordeal  in  addi 
tion  to  interrupting  his  work  had  enfeebled  his 
powers  of  resistance  and  greatly  reduced  his 
vitality.  He  recovered  from  the  fever  and  was 
able  to  take  up  the  book  again,  but  the  organ 
of  life  was  pronounced  ominously  weak  and  it 
was  enjoined  upon  him  with  some  sharpness 
that  he  should  lend  himself  to  no  worries.  It 
might  have  struck  me  as  on  the  cards  that  his 
worries  would  now  be  surmountable,  for  when 
he  began  to  mend  he  expressed  to  me  a  convic 
tion  almost  contagious  that  he  had  never  yet 
made  so  adroit  a  bid  as  in  the  idea  of  The  Hid- 


THE  NEXT  TIME  259 

den  Heart.  It  is  grimly  droll  to  reflect  that 
this  superb  little  composition,  the  shortest  of 
his  novels  but  perhaps  the  loveliest,  was  planned 
from  the  first  as  an  "  adventure -story "  on  ap 
proved  lines.  It  was  the  way  they  all  did  the 
adventure-story  that  he  tried  most  dauntlessly 
to  emulate.  I  wonder  how  many  readers  ever 
divined  to  which  of  their  book-shelves  The 
Hidden  Heart  was  so  exclusively  addressed. 
High  medical  advice  early  in  the  summer  had 
been  quite  viciously  clear  as  to  the  inconvenience 
that  might  ensue  to  him  should  he  neglect  to 
spend  the  winter  in  Egypt.  He  was  not  a  man 
to  neglect  anything;  but  Egypt  seemed  to  us 
all  then  as  unattainable  as  a  second  edition. 
He  finished  The  Hidden  Heart  with  the  energy 
of  apprehension  and  desire,  for  if  the  book 
should  happen  to  do  what  "books  of  that 
class,"  as  the  publisher  said,  sometimes  did  he 
might  well  have  a  fund  to  draw  on.  As  soon 
as  I  read  the  deep  and  delicate  thing  I  knew, 
as  I  had  known  in  each  case  before,  exactly 
how  well  it  would  do.  Poor  Limbert  in  this 
long  business  always  figured  to  me  an  undis- 
courageable  parent  to  whom  only  girls  kept 
being  born.  A  bouncing  boy,  a  son  and  heir 


260  EMBARRASSMENTS 

was  devoutly  prayed  for  and  almanacks  and  old 
wives  consulted ;  but  the  spell  was  inveterate, 
incurable,  and  The  Hidden  Heart  proved,  so  to 
speak,  but  another  female  child.  When  the 
winter  arrived  accordingly  Egypt  was  out  of 
the  question.  Jane  Highmore,  to  my  know 
ledge,  wanted  to  lend  him  money,  and  there 
were  even  greater  devotees  who  did  their  best 
to  induce  him  to  lean  on  them.  There  was  so 
marked  a  "movement"  among  his  friends  that 
a  very  considerable  sum  would  have  been  at  his 
disposal ;  but  his  stiffness  was  invincible :  it 
had  its  root,  I  think,  in  his  sense,  on  his  own 
side,  of  sacrifices  already  made.  He  had  sacri 
ficed  honour  and  pride,  and  he  had  sacrificed 
them  precisely  to  the  question  of  money.  He 
would  evidently,  should  he  be  able  to  go  on, 
have  to  continue  to  sacrifice  them,  but  it  must 
be  all  in  the  way  to  which  he  had  now,  as  he 
considered,  hardened  himself.  He  had  spent 
years  in  plotting  for  favour,  and  since  on  favour 
he  must  live  it  could  only  be  as  a  bargain  and 
a  price. 

He  got  through  the  early  part  of  the  season 
better  than  we  feared,  and  I  went  down  in  great 
elation  to  spend  Christmas  on  the  goose-green. 


THE  NEXT   TIME  261 

He  told  me  late  on  Christmas  eve,  after  our  sim 
ple  domestic  revels  had  sunk  to  rest  and  we  sat 
together  by  the  fire,  that  he  had  been  visited 
the  night  before  in  wakeful  hours  by  the  finest 
fancy  for  a  really  good  thing  that  he  had  ever 
felt  descend  in  the  darkness.  "  It's  just  the 
vision  of  a  situation  that  contains,  upon  my  hon 
our,  everything,"  he  said,  uand  I  wonder  that 
I've  never  thought  of  it  before."  He  didn't  de 
scribe  it  further,  contrary  to  his  common  practice, 
and  I  only  knew  later,  by  Mrs.  Limbert,  that  he 
had  begun  Derogation  and  that  he  was  completely 
full  of  his  subject.  It  was  a  subject  however 
that  he  was  not  to  live  to  treat.  The  work 
went  on  for  a  couple  of  months  in  happy  mys 
tery,  without  revelations  even  to  his  wife.  He 
had  not  invited  her  to  help  him  to  get  up  his 
case  —  she  had  not  taken  the  field  with  him  as  on 
his  previous  campaigns.  We  only  knew  he  was 
at  it  again  but  that  less  even  than  ever  had  been 
said  about  the  impression  to  be  made  on  the  mar 
ket.  I  saw  him  in  February  and  thought  him 
sufficiently  at  ease.  The  great  thing  was  that 
he  was  immensely  interested  and  was  pleased 
with  the  omens.  I  got  a  strange,  stirring  sense 
that  he  had  not  consulted  the  usual  ones  and 


262  EMBARRASSMENTS 

indeed  that  he  had  floated  away  into  a  grand 
indifference,  into  a  reckless  consciousness  of  art. 
The  voice  of  the  market  had  suddenly  grown 
faint  and  far :  he  had  come  back  at  the  last,  as 
people  so  often  do,  to  one  of  the  moods,  the 
sincerities  of  his  prime.  Was  he  really  with  a 
blurred  sense  of  the  urgent  doing  something  now 
only  for  himself?  We  wondered  and  waited  — 
we  felt  that  he  was  a  little  confused.  What  had 
happened,  I  was  afterwards  satisfied,  was  that  he 
had  quite  forgotten  whether  he  generally  sold  or 
not.  He  had  merely  waked  up  one  morning 
again  in  the  country  of  the  blue  and  had  stayed 
there  with  a  good  conscience  and  a  great  idea. 
He  stayed  till  death  knocked  at  the  gate,  for 
the  pen  dropped  from  his  hand  only  at  the  mo 
ment  when  from  sudden  failure  of  the  heart  his 
eyes,  as  he  sank  back  in  his  chair,  closed  for 
ever.  Derogation  is  a  splendid  fragment ;  it 
evidently  would  have  been  one  of  his  high  suc 
cesses.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  it  would  have 
waked  up  the  libraries. 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME 


I  FIND,  as  you  prophesied,  much  that's  inter 
esting,  but  little  that  helps  the  delicate  question 
—  the  possibility  of  publication.  Her  diaries  are 
less  systematic  than  I  hoped;  she  only  had  a 
blessed  habit  of  noting  and  narrating.  She  sum 
marised,  she  saved  ;  she  appears  seldom  indeed 
to  have  let  a  good  story  pass  without  catching 
it  on  the  wing.  I  allude  of  course  not  so  much 
to  things  she  heard  as  to  things  she  saw  and 
felt.  She  writes  sometimes  of  herself,  sometimes 
of  others,  sometimes  of  the  combination.  It's 
under  this  last  rubric  that  she's  usually  most 
vivid.  But  it's  not,  you  will  understand,  when 
she's  most  vivid  that  she's  always  most  publish- 
able.  To  tell  the  truth  she's  fearfully  indiscreet, 
or  has  at  least  all  the  material  for  making  me 
so.  Take  as  an  instance  the  fragment  I  send 
you,  after  dividing  it  for  your  convenience  into 
several  small  chapters.  It  is  the  contents  of  a 

265 


266  EMBARRASSMENTS 

thin  blank -book  which  I  have  had  copied  out 
and  which  has  the  merit  of  being  nearly  enough 
a  rounded  thing,  an  intelligible  whole.  These 
pages  evidently  date  from  years  ago.  I've  read 
with  the  liveliest  wonder  the  statement  they  so 
circumstantially  make  and  done  my  best  to  swal 
low  the  prodigy  they  leave  to  be  inferred.  These 
things  would  be  striking,  wouldn't  they  ?  to  any 
reader ;  but  can  you  imagine  for  a  moment  my 
placing  such  a  document  before  the  world,  even 
though,  as  if  she  herself  had  desired  the  world 
should  have  the  benefit  of  it,  she  has  given  her 
friends  neither  name  nor  initials  ?  Have  you  any 
sort  of  clue  to  their  identity?  I  leave  her  the 
floor. 


I  KNOW  perfectly  of  course  that  I  brought  it 
upon  myself ;  but  that  doesn't  make  it  any 
better.  I  was  the  first  to  speak  of  her  to  him  — 
he  had  never  even  heard  her  mentioned.  Even 
if  I  had  happened  not  to  speak  some  one  else 
would  have  made  up  for  it :  I  tried  afterwards 
to  find  comfort  in  that  reflection.  But  the  com 
fort  of  reflections  is  thin :  the  only  comfort 
that  counts  in  life  is  not  to  have  been  a  fool. 
That's  a  beatitude  I  shall  doubtless  never  enjoy. 
"  Why,  you  ought  to  meet  her  and  talk  it  over," 
is  what  I  immediately  said.  "  Birds  of  a  feather 
flock  together."  I  told  him  who  she  was  and 
that  they  were  birds  of  a  feather  because  if  he 
had  had  in  youth  a  strange  adventure  she  had 
had  about  the  same  time  just  such  another.  It 
was  well  known  to  her  friends  —  an  incident 
she  was  constantly  called  on  to  describe.  She 
was  charming,  clever,  pretty,  unhappy;  but  it 

267 


268  EMBARRASSMENTS 

was  none  the  less   the  thing  to  which  she  had 
originally  owed  her  reputation. 

Being  at  the  age  of  eighteen  somewhere  abroad 
with  an  aunt  she  had  had  a  vision  of  one  of  her 
parents  at  the  moment  of  death.  The  parent 
was  in  England,  hundreds  of  miles  away  and 
so  far  as  she  knew  neither  dying  nor  dead.  It 
was  by  day,  in  the  museum  of  some  great  foreign 
town.  She  had  passed  alone,  in  advance  of  her 
companions,  into  a  small  room  containing  some 
famous  work  of  art  and  occupied  at  that  moment 
by  two  other  persons.  One  of  these  was  an  old 
custodian ;  the  second,  before  observing  him,  she 
took  for  a  stranger,  a  tourist.  She  was  merely 
conscious  that  he  was  bareheaded  and  seated  on 
a  bench.  The  instant  her  eyes  rested  on  him 
however  she  beheld  to  her  amazement  her  father, 
who,  as  if  he  had  long  waited  for  her,  looked 
at  her  in  singular  distress,  with  an  impatience 
that  was  akin  to  reproach.  She  rushed  to  him 
with  a  bewildered  cry,  "  Papa,  what  is  it  ?  "  but 
this  was  followed  by  an  exhibition  of  still  livelier 
feeling  when  on  her  movement  he  simply  van 
ished,  leaving  the  custodian  and  her  relations, 
who  were  at  her  heels,  to  gather  round  her  in 
dismay.  These  persons,  the  official,  the  aunt, 


THE   WAY   IT   CAME  269 

the  cousins  were  therefore  in  a  manner  witnesses 
of  the  fact  —  the  fact  at  least  of  the  impression 
made  on  her ;  and  there  was  the  further  testi 
mony  of  a  doctor  who  was  attending  one  of  the 
party  and  to  whom  it  was  immediately  after 
wards  communicated.  He  gave  her  a  remedy 
for  hysterics  but  said  to  the  aunt  privately : 
"Wait  and  see  if  something  doesn't  happen  at 
home."  Something  had  happened  —  the  poor 
father,  suddenly  and  violently  seized,  had  died 
that  morning.  The  aunt,  the  mother's  sister, 
received  before  the  day  was  out  a  telegram  an 
nouncing  the  event  and  requesting  her  to  pre 
pare  her  niece  for  it.  Her  niece  was  already 
prepared,  and  the  girl's  sense  of  this  visitation 
remained  of  course  indelible.  We  had  all  as 
her  friends  had  it  conveyed  to  us  and  had  con 
veyed  it  creepily  to  each  other.  Twelve  years 
had  elapsed  and  as  a  woman  who  had  made  an 
unhappy  marriage  and*  lived  apart  from  her 
husband  she  had  become  interesting  from  other 
sources;  but  since  the  name  she  now  bore  was 
a  name  frequently  borne,  and  since  moreover 
her  judicial  separation,  as  things  were  going, 
could  hardly  count  as  a  distinction,  it  was  usual 
to  qualify  her  as  "the  one,  you  know,  who  saw 
her  father's  ghost." 


270  EMBARRASSMENTS 

As  for  him,  dear  man,  he  had  seen  his  mother's. 
I  had  never  heard  of  that  till  this  occasion  on 
which  our  closer,  our  pleasanter  acquaintance  led 
him,  through  some  turn  of  the  subject  of  our  talk, 
to  mention  it  and  to  inspire  me  in  so  doing  with 
the  impulse  to  let  him  know  that  he  had  a  rival  in 
the  field  —  a  person  with  whom  he  could  compare 
notes.  Later  on  his  story  became  for  him,  per 
haps  because  of  my  unduly  repeating  it,  likewise 
a  convenient  wordly  label ;  but  it  had  not  a  year 
before  been  the  ground  on  which  he  was  intro 
duced  to  me.  He  had  other  merits,  just  as  she, 
poor  thing  !  had  others.  I  can  honestly  say  that 
I  was  quite  aware  of  them  from  the  first  —  I  dis 
covered  them  sooner  than  he  discovered  mine.  I 
remember  how  it  struck  me  even  at  the  time  that 
his  sense  of  mine  was  quickened  by  my  having 
been  able  to  match,  though  not  indeed  straight 
from  my  own  experience,  his  curious  anecdote.  It 
dated,  this  anecdote,  as  hers  did,  from  some  dozen 
years  before  —  a  year  in  which,  at  Oxford,  he 
had  for  some  reason  of  his  own  been  staying  on 
into  the  "Long."  He  had  been  in  the  August 
afternoon  on  the  river.  Coming  back  into  his 
room  while  it  was  still  distinct  daylight  he  found 
his  mother  standing  there  as  if  her  eyes  had  been 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  271 

fixed  on  the  door.  He  had  had  a  letter  from  her 
that  morning  out  of  Wales,  where  she  was  stay 
ing  with  her  father.  At  the  sight  of  him  she 
smiled  with  extraordinary  radiance  and  extended 
her  arms  to  him,  and  then  as  he  sprang  forward 
and  joyfully  opened  his  own  she  vanished  from 
the  place.  He  wrote  to  her  that  night,  telling 
her  what  had  happened ;  the  letter  had  been 
carefully  preserved.  The  next  morning  he  heard 
of  her  death.  He  was  through  this  chance  of 
our  talk  extremely  struck  with  the  little  prodigy 
I  was  able  to  produce  for  him.  He  had  never 
encountered  another  case.  Certainly  they  ought 
to  meet,  my  friend  and  he  ;  certainly  they  would 
have  something  in  common.  I  would  arrange 
this,  wouldn't  I? — if  she  didn't  mind;  for  him 
self  he  didn't  mind  in  the  least.  I  had  promised 
to  speak  to  her  of  the  matter  as  soon  as  possible, 
and  within  the  week  I  was  able  to  do  so.  She 
" minded"  as  little  as  he  ;  she  was  perfectly  will 
ing  to  see  him.  And  yet  no  meeting  was  to  occur 
—  as  meetings  are  commonly  understood. 


II 


THAT'S  just  half  my  tale  —  the  extraordinary 
way  it  was  hindered.  This  was  the  fault  of  a 
series  of  accidents ;  but  the  accidents  continued 
for  years  and  became,  for  me  and  for  others,  a 
subject  of  hilarity  with  either  party.  They  were 
droll  enough  at  first ;  then  they  grew  rather  a 
bore.  The  odd  thing  was  that  both  parties  were 
amenable  :  it  wasn't  a  case  of  their  being  indif 
ferent,  much  less  of  their  being  indisposed.  It 
was  one  of  the  caprices  of  chance,  aided  I  sup 
pose  by  some  opposition  of  their  interests  and 
habits.  His  were  centred  in  his  office,  his  eter 
nal  inspectorship,  which  left  him  small  leisure, 
constantly  calling  him  away  and  making  him 
break  engagements.  He  liked  society,  but  he 
found  it  everywhere  and  took  it  at  a  run.  I 
never  knew  at  a  given  moment  where  he  was, 
and  there  were  times  when  for  months  together 
I  never  saw  him.  She  was  on  her  side  practi- 
272 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  273 

cally  suburban :  she  lived  at  Richmond  and 
never  went  "out."  She  was  a  woman  of  dis 
tinction,  but  not  of  fashion,  and  felt,  as  people 
said,  her  situation.  Decidedly  proud  and  rather 
whimsical  she  lived  her  life  as  she  had  planned 
it.  There  were  things  one  could  do  with  her, 
but  one  couldn't  make  her  come  to  one's  par 
ties.  One  went  indeed  a  little  more  than  seemed 
quite  convenient  to  hers,  which  consisted  of  her 
cousin,  a  cup  of  tea  and  the  view.  The  tea  was 
good  ;  but  the  view  was  familiar,  though  perhaps 
not,  like  the  cousin  —  a  disagreeable  old  maid 
who  had  been  of  the  group  at  the  museum  and 
with  whom  she  now  lived  —  offensively  so.  This 
connection  with  an  inferior  relative,  which  had 
partly  an  economical  motive  —  she  proclaimed 
her  companion  a  marvellous  manager  —  was  one 
of  the  little  perversities  we  had  to  forgive  her. 
Another  was  her  estimate  of  the  proprieties  cre 
ated  by  her  rupture  with  her  husband.  That 
was  extreme  —  many  persons  called  it  even  mor 
bid.  She  made  no  advances ;  she  cultivated 
scruples ;  she  suspected,  or  I  should  perhaps 
rather  say  she  remembered  slights :  she  was  one 
of  the  few  women  I  have  known  whom  that  par 
ticular  predicament  had  rendered  modest  rather 


274  EMBARRASSMENTS 

than  bold.  Dear  thing!  she  had  some  delicacy. 
Especially  marked  were  the  limits  she  had  set  to 
possible  attentions  from  men :  it  was  always  her 
thought  that  her  husband  was  waiting  to  pounce 
on  her.  She  discouraged  if  she  didn't  forbid  the 
visits  of  male  persons  not  senile  :  she  said  she 
could  never  be  too  careful. 

When  I  first  mentioned  to  her  that  I  had  a 
friend  whom  fate  had  distinguished  in  the  same 
weird  way  as  herself  I  put  her  quite  at  liberty  to 
say  "  Oh,  bring  him  out  to  see  me !  "  I  should 
probably  have  been  able  to  bring  him,  and  a  situ 
ation  perfectly  innocent  or  at  any  rate  compara 
tively  simple  would  have  been  created.  But 
she  uttered  no  such  word ;  she  only  said :  "I 
must  meet  him  certainly  ;  yes,  I  shall  look  out 
for  him ! "  That  caused  the  first  delay,  and 
meanwhile  various  things  happened.  One  of 
them  was  that  as  time  went  on  she  made,  charm 
ing  as  she  was,  more  and  more  friends,  and  that 
it  regularly  befell  that  these  friends  were  suffi 
ciently  also  friends  of  his  to  bring  him  up  in  con 
versation.  It  was  odd  that  without  belonging, 
as  it  were,  to  the  same  world  or,  according  to  the 
horrid  term,  the  same  set,  my  baffled  pair  should 
have  happened  in  so  many  cases  to  fall  in  with 


THE   WAY   IT   CAME  275 

the  same  people  and  make  them  join  in  the  funny 
chorus.  She  had  friends  who  didn't  know  each 
other  but  who  inevitably  and  punctually  recom 
mended  him.  She  had  also  the  sort  of  original 
ity,  the  intrinsic  interest  that  led  her  to  be  kept 
by  each  of  us  as  a  kind  of  private  resource,  cul 
tivated  jealously,  more  or  less  in  secret,  as  a  per 
son  whom  one  didn't  meet  in  society,  whom  it 
was  not  for  every  one  —  whom  it  was  not  for  the 
vulgar  —  to  approach,  and  with  whom  therefore 
acquaintance  was  particularly  difficult  and  par 
ticularly  precious.  We  saw  her  separately,  with 
appointments  and  conditions,  and  found  it  made 
on  the  whole  for  harmony  not  to  tell  each  other. 
Somebody  had  always  had  a  note  from  her  still 
later  than  somebody  else.  There  was  some  silly 
woman  who  for  a  long  time,  among  the  unprivi 
leged,  owed  to  three  simple  visits  to  Richmond 
a  reputation  for  being  intimate  with  "lots  of 
awfully  clever  out-of-the-way  people." 

Every  one  has  had  friends  it  has  seemed  a 
happy  thought  to  bring  together,  and  every  one 
remembers  that  his  happiest  thoughts  have  not 
been  his  greatest  successes ;  but  I  doubt  if  there 
was  ever  a  case  in  which  the  failure  was  in  such 
direct  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  influence  set 


276  EMBARRASSMENTS 

in  motion.  It  is  really  perhaps  here  the  quan 
tity  of  influence  that  was  most  remarkable.  My 
lady  and  gentleman  each  declared  to  me  and 
others  that  it  was  like  the  subject  of  a  roaring 
farce.  The  reason  first  given  had  with  time 
dropped  out  of  sight  and  fifty  better  ones  flour 
ished  on  top  of  it.  They  were  so  awfully  alike  : 
they  had  the  same  ideas  and  tricks  and  tastes, 
the  same  prejudices  and  superstitions  and  her 
esies  ;  they  said  the  same  things  and  sometimes 
did  them ;  they  liked  and  disliked  the  same  per 
sons  and  places,  the  same  books,  authors  and 
styles  ;  any  one  could  see  a  certain  identity  even 
in  their  looks  and  their  features.  It  established 
much  of  a  propriety  that  they  were  in  common 
parlance  equally  "  nice  "  and  almost  equally  hand 
some.  But  the  great  sameness,  for  wonder  and 
chatter,  was  their  rare  perversity  in  regard  to 
being  photographed.  They  were  the  only  per 
sons  ever  heard  of  who  had  never  been  "  taken  " 
and  who  had  a  passionate  objection  to  it.  They 
just  wouldn't  be,  for  anything  any  one  could  say. 
I  had  loudly  complained  of  this ;  him  in  partic 
ular  I  had  so  vainly  desired  to  be  able  to  show 
on  my  drawing-room  chimney-piece  in  a  Bond 
Street  frame.  It  was  at  any  rate  the  very  live- 


THE   WAY  IT   CAME  277 

liest  of  all  the  reasons  why  they  ought  to  know 
each  other  —  all  the  lively  reasons  reduced  to 
naught  by  the  strange  law  that  had  made  them 
bang  so  many  doors  in  each  other's  face,  made 
them  the  buckets  in  the  well,  the  two  ends  of 
the  see-saw,  the  two  parties  in  the  state,  so  that 
when  one  was  up  the  other  was  down,  when  one 
was  out  the  other  was  in ;  neither  by  any  possi 
bility  entering  a  house  till  the  other  had  left  it, 
or  leaving  it,  all  unawares,  till  the  other  was  at 
hand.  They  only  arrived  when  they  had  been 
given  up,  which  was  precisely  also  when  they 
departed.  They  were  in  a  word  alternate  and 
incompatible ;  they  missed  each  other  with  an 
inveteracy  that  could  be  explained  only  by  its 
being  preconcerted.  It  was  however  so  far  from 
preconcerted  that  it  had  ended  —  literally  after 
several  years  —  by  disappointing  and  annoying 
them.  I  don't  think  their  curiosity  was  lively 
till  it  had  been  proved  utterly  vain.  A  great 
deal  was  of  course  done  to  help  them,  but  it 
merely  laid  wires  for  them  to  trip.  To  give 
examples  I  should  have  to  have  taken  notes ; 
but  I  happen  to  remember  that  neither  had  ever 
been  able  to  dine  on  the  right  occasion.  The 
right  occasion  for  each  was  the  occasion  that 


278  EMBARRASSMENTS 

would  be  wrong  for  the  other.  On  the  wrong 
one  they  were  most  punctual,  and  there  were 
never  any  but  wrong  ones.  The  very  elements 
conspired  and  the  constitution  of  man  reinforced 
them.  A  cold,  a  headache,  a  bereavement,  a 
storm,  a  fog,  an  earthquake,  a  cataclysm  in 
fallibly  intervened.  The  whole  business  was 
beyond  a  joke. 

Yet  as  a  joke  it  had  still  to  be  taken,  though 
one  couldn't  help  feeling  that  the  joke  had  made 
the  situation  serious,  had  produced  on  the  part 
of  each  a  consciousness,  an  awkwardness,  a  posi 
tive  dread  of  the  last  accident  of  all,  the  only 
one  with  any  freshness  left,  the  accident  that 
would  bring  them  face  to  face.  The  final  effect 
of  its  predecessors  had  been  to  kindle  this  in 
stinct.  They  were  quite  ashamed — perhaps  even 
a  little  of  each  other.  So  much  preparation,  so 
much  frustration :  what  indeed  could  be  good 
enough  for  it  all  to  lead  up  to  ?  A  mere  meet 
ing  would  be  mere  flatness.  Did  I  see  them  at 
the  end  of  years,  they  often  asked,  just  stupidly 
confronted?  If  they  were  bored  by  the  joke 
they  might  be  worse  bored  by  something  else. 
They  made  exactly  the  same  reflections,  and  each 
in  some  manner  was  sure  to  hear  of  the  other's. 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  279 

I  really  think  it  was  this  peculiar  diffidence  that 
finally  controlled  the  situation.  I  mean  that  if 
they  had  failed  for  the  first  year  or  two  because 
they  couldn't  help  it  they  kept  up  the  habit  be 
cause  they  had  —  what  shall  I  call  it?  —  grown 
nervous.  It  really  took  some  lurking  volition 
to  account  for  anything  so  absurd. 


Ill 


WHEN  to  crown  our  long  acquaintance  I 
accepted  his  renewed  offer  of  marriage  it  was 
humorously  said,  I  know,  that  I  had  made  the 
gift  of  his  photograph  a  condition.  This  was  so 
far  true  that  I  had  refused  to  give  him  mine 
without  it.  At  any  rate  I  had  him  at  last,  in  his 
high  distinction,  on  the  chimney-piece,  where  the 
day  she  called  to  congratulate  me  she  came  nearer 
than  she  had  ever  done  to  seeing  him.  He  had 
set  her  in  being  taken  an  example  which  I  invited 
her  to  follow  ;  he  had  sacrificed  his  perversity  — 
wouldn't  she  sacrifice  hers?  She  too  must  give 
me  something  on  my  engagement  —  wouldn't  she 
give  me  the  companion-piece  ?  She  laughed  and 
shook  her  head  ;  she  had  headshakes  whose  im 
pulse  seemed  to  come  from  as  far  away  as  the 
breeze  that  stirs  a  flower.  The  companion-piece 
to  the  portrait  of  my  future  husband  was  the  por 
trait  of  his  future  wife.  She  had  taken  her  stand 

280 


THE   WAY  IT   CAME  281 

—  she  could  depart  from  it  as  little  as  she  could 
explain  it.  It  was  a  prejudice,  an  entetement,  a 
vow  —  she  would  live  and  die  unphotographed. 
Now  too  she  was  alone  in  that  state  :  this  was  what 
she  liked  ;  it  made  her  so  much  more  original. 
She  rejoiced  in  the  fall  of  her  late  associate  and 
looked  a  long  time  at  his  picture,  about  which 
she  made  no  memorable  remark,  though  she  even 
turned  it  over  to  see  the  back.  About  our  en 
gagement  she  was  charming  —  full  of  cordiality 
and  sympathy.  "You've  known  him  even  longer 
than  I've  not"  she  said,  "and  that  seems  a  very 
long  time."  She  understood  how  we  had  jogged 
together  over  hill  and  dale  and  how  inevitable 
it  was  that  we  should  now  rest  together.  I'm 
definite  about  all  this  because  what  followed  is 
so  strange  that  it's  a  kind  of  relief  to  me  to  mark 
the  point  up  to  which  our  relations  were  as 
natural  as  ever.  It  was  I  myself  who  in  a  sudden 
madness  altered  and  destroyed  them.  I  see  now 
that  she  gave  me  no  pretext  and  that  I  only 
found  one  in  the  way  she  looked  at  the  fine  face 
in  the  Bond  Street  frame.  How  then  would  I 
have  had  her  look  at  it?  What  I  had  wanted 
from  the  first  was  to  make  her  care  for  him. 
Well,  that  was  what  I  still  wanted  —  up  to  the 


282  EMBARRASSMENTS 

moment  of  her  having  promised  me  that  he  would 
on  this  occasion  really  aid  me  to  break  the  silly 
spell  that  had  kept  them  asunder.  I  had  ar 
ranged  with  him  to  do  his  part  if  she  would  as 
triumphantly  do  hers.  I  was  on  a  different  foot 
ing  now  —  I  was  on  a  footing  to  answer  for  him. 
I  would  positively  engage  that  at  five  on  the 
following  Saturday  he  would  be  on  that  spot. 
He  was  out  of  town  on  pressing  business  ;  but 
pledged  to  keep  his  promise  to  the  letter  he 
would  return  on  purpose  and  in  abundant  time. 
"  Are  you  perfectly  sure  ?  "  I  remember  she  asked, 
looking  grave  and  considering :  I  thought  she 
had  turned  a  little  pale.  She  was  tired,  she  was 
indisposed  :  it  was  a  pity  he  was  to  see  her  after 
all  at  so  poor  a  moment.  If  he  only  could  have 
seen  her  five  years  before  !  However,  I  replied 
that  this  time  I  was  sure  and  that  success  there 
fore  depended  simply  on  herself.  At  five  o'clock 
on  the  Saturday  she  would  find  him  in  a  particu 
lar  chair  I  pointed  out,  the  one  in  which  he 
usually  sat  and  in  which  —  though  this  I  didn't 
mention  —  he  had  been  sitting  when,  the  week 
before,  he  put  the  question  of  our  future  to  me 
in  the  way  that  had  brought  me  round.  She 
looked  at  it  in  silence,  just  as  she  had  looked  at 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  283 

the  photograph,  while  I  repeated  for  the  twen 
tieth  time  that  it  was  too  preposterous  it  shouldn't 
somehow  be  feasible  to  introduce  to  one's  dearest 
friend  one's  second  self.  "Am  I  your  dearest 
friend  ? "  she  asked  with  a  smile  that  for  a 
moment  brought  back  her  beauty.  I  replied  by 
pressing  her  to  my  bosom  ;  after  which  she  said  : 
"Well,  I'll  come.  I'm  extraordinarily  afraid, 
but  you  may  count  on  me." 

When  she  had  left  me  I  began  to  wonder  what 
she  was  afraid  of,  for  she  had  spoken  as  if  she 
fully  meant  it.  The  next  day,  late  in  the  after 
noon,  I  had  three  lines  from  her :  she  had  found 
on  getting  home  the  announcement  of  her  hus 
band's  death.  She  had  not  seen  him  for  seven 
years,  but  she  wished  me  to  know  it  in  this  way 
before  I  should  hear  of  it  in  another.  It  made 
however  in  her  life,  strange  and  sad  to  say,  so 
little  difference  that  she  would  scrupulously  keep 
her  appointment.  I  rejoiced  for  her  —  I  sup 
posed  it  would  make  at  least  the  difference  of 
her  having  more  money ;  but  even  in  this  diver 
sion,  far  from  forgetting  that  she  had  said  she 
was  afraid,  I  seemed  to  catch  sight  of  a  reason 
for  her  being  so.  Her  fear  as  the  evening  went 
on  became  contagious,  and  the  contagion  took  in 


284  EMBARRASSMENTS 

my  breast  the  form  of  a  sudden  panic.  It  wasn't 
jealousy  —  it  was  the  dread  of  jealousy.  I  called 
myself  a  fool  for  not  having  been  quiet  till  we 
were  man  and  wife.  After  that  I  should  somehow 
feel  secure.  It  was  only  a  question  of  waiting 
another  month  —  a  trifle  surely  for  people  who 
had  waited  so  long.  It  had  been  plain  enough 
she  was  nervous,  and  now  that  she  was  free  she 
naturally  wouldn't  be  less  so.  What  was  her 
nervousness  therefore  but  a  presentiment?  She 
had  been  hitherto  the  victim  of  interference,  but 
it  was  quite  possible  she  would  henceforth  be  the 
source  of  it.  The  victim  in  that  case  would  be 
my  simple  self.  What  had  the  interference  been 
but  the  finger  of  providence  pointing  out  a  dan 
ger  ?  The  danger  was  of  course  for  poor  me.  It 
had  been  kept  at  bay  by  a  series  of  accidents 
unexampled  in  their  frequency ;  but  the  reign 
of  accident  was  now  visibly  at  an  end.  I  had 
an  intimate  conviction  that  both  parties  would 
keep  the  tryst.  It  was  more  and  more  impressed 
upon  me  that  they  were  approaching,  converging. 
We  had  talked  about  breaking  the  spell ;  well,  it 
would  be  effectually  broken  —  unless  indeed  it 
should  merely  take  another  form  and  overdo  their 
encounters  as  it  had  overdone  their  escapes. 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  285 

This  was  something  I  couldn't  sit  still  for  think 
ing  of;  it  kept  me  awake  —  at  midnight  I  was 
full  of  unrest.  At  last  I  felt  there  was  only  one 
way  of  laying  the  ghost.  If  the  reign  of  accident 
was  over  I  must  just  take  up  the  succession.  I 
sat  down  and  wrote  a  hurried  note  which  would 
meet  him  on  his  return  and  which  as  the  servants 
had  gone  to  bed  I  sallied  forth  bareheaded  into 
the  empty,  gusty  street  to  drop  into  the  nearest 
pillar-box.  It  was  to  tell  him  that  I  shouldn't  be 
able  to  be  at  home  in  the  afternoon  as  I  had 
hoped  and  that  he  must  postpone  his  visit  till 
dinner-time.  This  was  an  implication  that  he 
would  find  me  alone. 


IV 


WHEN  accordingly  at  five  she  presented  her 
self  I  naturally  felt  false  and  base.  My  act  had 
been  a  momentary  madness,  but  I  had  at  least 
to  be  consistent.  She  remained  an  hour;  he  of 
course  never  came  ;  and  I  could  only  persist  in 
my  perfidy.  I  had  thought  it  best  to  let  her 
come ;  singular  as  this  now  seems  to  me  I 
thought  it  diminished  my  guilt.  Yet  as  she  sat 
there  so  visibly  white  and  weary,  stricken  with 
a  sense  of  everything  her  husband's  death  had 
opened  up,  I  felt  an  almost  intolerable  pang  of 
pity  and  remorse.  If  I  didn't  tell  her  on  the 
spot  what  I  had  done  it  was  because  I  was  too 
ashamed.  I  feigned  astonishment  —  I  feigned  it 
to  the  end  ;  I  protested  that  if  ever  I  had  had 
confidence  I  had  had  it  that  day.  I  blush  as  I 
tell  my  story  —  I  take  it  as  my  penance.  There 
was  nothing  indignant  I  didn't  say  about  him  ; 
I  invented  suppositions,  attenuations ;  I  admitted 
286 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  287 

in  stupefaction,  as  the  hands  of  the  clock  trav 
elled,  that  their  luck  hadn't  turned.  She  smiled 
at  this  vision  of  their  "  luck,"  but  she  looked  anx 
ious —  she  looked  unusual:  the  only  thing  that 
kept  me  up  was  the  fact  that,  oddly  enough,  she 
wore  mourning  —  no  great  depths  of  crape,  but 
simple  and  scrupulous  black.  She  had  in  her 
bonnet  three  small  black  feathers.  She  carried 
a  little  muff  of  astrachan.  This  put  me  by  the 
aid  of  some  acute  reflection  a  little  in  the  right. 
She  had  written  to  me  that  the  sudden  event 
made  no  difference  for  her,  but  apparently  it 
made  as  much  difference  as  that.  If  she  was 
inclined  to  the  usual  forms  why  didn't  she  ob 
serve  that  of  not  going  the  first  day  or  two 
out  to  tea?  There  was  some  one  she  wanted 
so  much  to  see  that  she  couldn't  wait  till  her 
husband  was  buried.  Such  a  betrayal  of  eager 
ness  made  me  hard  and  cruel  enough  to  prac 
tise  my  odious  deceit,  though  at  the  same  time, 
as  the  hour  waxed  and  waned,  I  suspected  in  her 
something  deeper  still  than  disappointment  and 
somewhat  less  successfully  concealed.  I  mean  a 
strange  underlying  relief,  the  soft,  low  emission 
of  the  breath  that  comes  when  a  danger  is  past. 
What  happened  as  she  spent  her  barren  hour 


288  EMBARRASSMENTS 

with  me  was  that  at  last  she  gave  him  up.  She 
let  him  go  for  ever.  She  made  the  most  grace 
ful  joke  of  it  that  I've  ever  seen  made  of  any 
thing  ;  but  it  was  for  all  that  a  great  date  in 
her  life.  She  spoke  with  her  mild  gaiety  of  all 
the  other  vain  times,  the  long  game  of  hide-and- 
seek,  the  unprecedented  queerness  of  such  a  rela 
tion.  For  it  was,  or  had  been,  a  relation,  wasn't 
it,  hadn't  it  ?  That  was  just  the  absurd  part  of 
it.  When  she  got  up  to  go  I  said  to  her  that  it 
was  more  a  relation  than  ever,  but  that  I  hadn't 
the  face  after  what  had  occurred  to  propose  to 
her  for  the  present  another  opportunity.  It  was 
plain  that  the  only  valid  opportunity  would  be 
my  accomplished  marriage.  Of  course  she  would 
be  at  my  wedding  ?  It  was  even  to  be  hoped  that 
he  would. 

"  If  I  am,  he  won't  be  !  "  she  declared  with  a 
laugh.  I  admitted  there  might  be  something  in 
that.  The  thing  was  therefore  to  get  us  safely 
married  first.  "That  won't  help  us.  Nothing 
will  help  us  !  "  she  said  as  she  kissed  me  fare 
well.  "  I  shall  never,  never  see  him  ! "  It  was 
with  those  words  she  left  me. 

I  could  bear  her  disappointment  as  I've  called 
it ;  but  when  a  couple  of  hours  later  I  received 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  289 

him  at  dinner  I  found  that  I  couldn't  bear  his. 
The  way  my  manoeuvre  might  have  affected  him 
had  not  been  particularly  present  to  me  ;  but  the 
result  of  it  was  the  first  word  of  reproach  that  had 
ever  yet  dropped  from  him.  I  say  "  reproach " 
because  that  expression  is  scarcely  too  strong  for 
the  terms  in  which  he  conveyed  to  me  his  sur 
prise  that  under  the  extraordinary  circumstances 
I  should  not  have  found  some  means  not  to  de 
prive  him  of  such  an  occasion.  I  might  really 
have  managed  either  not  to  be  obliged  to  go 
out  or  to  let  their  meeting  take  place  all  the 
same.  They  would  probably  have  got  on  in  my 
drawing-room  without  me.  At  this  I  quite  broke 
down  —  I  confessed  my  iniquity  and  the  miser 
able  reason  of  it.  I  had  not  put  her  off  and  I 
had  not  gone  out ;  she  had  been  there  and  after 
waiting  for  him  an  hour  had  departed  in  the 
belief  that  he  had  been  absent  by  his  own 
fault. 

"  She  must  think  me  a  precious  brute  !  "  he 
exclaimed.  "  Did  she  say  of  me — what  she  had 
a  right  to  say  ?  " 

"  I  assure  you  she  said  nothing  that  showed  the 
least  feeling.  She  looked  at  your  photograph,  she 
even  turned  round  the  back  of  it,  on  which  your 


290  EMBARRASSMENTS 

address  happens  to  be  inscribed.  Yet  it  provoked 
her  to  no  demonstration.  She  doesn't  care  so 
much  as  all  that." 

"  Then  why  are  you  afraid  of  her  ?  " 

"It  was  not  of  her  I  was  afraid.  It  was  of 
you." 

"  Did  you  think  I  would  fall  in  love  with  her  ? 
You  never  alluded  to  such  a  possibility  before," 
he  went  on  as  I  remained  silent.  "Admirable 
person  as  you  pronounced  her,  that  wasn't  the 
light  in  which  you  showed  her  to  me." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  if  it  had  been  you  would 
have  managed  by  this  time  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
her?  I  didn't  fear  things  then,"  I  added.  "I 
hadn't  the  same  reason." 

He  kissed  me  at  this,  and  when  I  remembered 
that  she  had  done  so  an  hour  or  two  before  I  felt 
for  an  instant  as  if  he  were  taking  from  my  lips 
the  very  pressure  of  hers.  In  spite  of  kisses  the 
incident  had  shed  a  certain  chill,  and  I  suffered 
horribly  from  the  sense  that  he  had  seen  me 
guilty  of  a  fraud.  He  had  seen  it  only  through 
my  frank  avowal,  but  I  was  as  unhappy  as  if  I 
had  a  stain  to  efface.  I  couldn't  get  over  the 
manner  of  his  looking  at  me  when  I  spoke  of 
her  apparent  indifference  to  his  not  having  come. 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  291 

For  the  first  time  since  I  had  known  him  he 
seemed  to  have  expressed  a  doubt  of  my  word. 
Before  we  parted  I  told  him  that  I  would  unde 
ceive  her,  start  the  first  thing  in  the  morning  for 
Richmond  and  there  let  her  know  that  he  had 
been  blameless.  At  this  he  kissed  me  again.  I 
would  expiate  my  sin,  I  said;  I  would  humble 
myself  in  the  dust ;  I  would  confess  and  ask  to 
be  forgiven.  At  this  he  kissed  me  once  more. 


IN  the  train  the  next  day  this  struck  me  as 
a  good  deal  for  him  to  have  consented  to;  but 
my  purpose  was  firm  enough  to  carry  me  on.  I 
mounted  the  long  hill  to  where  the  view  begins, 
and  then  I  knocked  at  her  door.  I  was  a  trifle 
mystified  by  the  fact  that  her  blinds  were  still 
drawn,  reflecting  that  if  in  the  stress  of  my 
compunction  I  had  come  early  I  had  certainly 
yet  allowed  people  time  to  get  up. 

"At  home,  mum?    She  has  left  home  for  ever." 

I  was  extraordinarily  startled  by  this  announce 

ment  of  the  elderly  parlour-maid.     "  She  has  gone 


"She's  dead,  mum,  please."  Then  as  I  gasped 
at  the  horrible  word:  "She  died  last  night." 

The  loud  cry  that  escaped  me  sounded  even  in 
my  own  ears  like  some  harsh  violation  of  the 
hour.  I  felt  for  the  moment  as  if  I  had  killed 
her  ;  I  turned  faint  and  saw  through  a  vagueness 

292 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  293 

the  woman  hold  out  her  arms  to  me.  Of  what 
next  happened  I  have  no  recollection,  nor  of 
anything  but  my  friend's  poor  stupid  cousin,  in 
a  darkened  room,  after  an  interval  that  I  suppose 
very  brief,  sobbing  at  me  in  a  smothered  accusa 
tory  way.  I  can't  say  how  long  it  took  me  to 
understand,  to  believe  and  then  to  press  back 
with  an  immense  effort  that  pang  of  responsi 
bility  which,  superstitiously,  insanely  had  been 
at  first  almost  all  I  was  conscious  of.  The 
doctor,  after  the  fact,  had  been  superlatively 
wise  and  clear:  he  was  satisfied  of  a  long-latent 
weakness  of  the  heart,  determined  probably  years 
before  by  the  agitations  and  terrors  to  which  her 
marriage  had  introduced  her.  She  had  had  in 
those  days  cruel  scenes  with  her  husband,  she 
had  been  in  fear  of  her  life.  All  emotion,  every 
thing  in  the  nature  of  anxiety  and  suspense  had 
been  after  that  to  be  strongly  deprecated,  as  in 
her  marked  cultivation  of  a  quiet  life  she  was 
evidently  well  aware;  but  who  could  say  that 
any  one,  especially  a  "real  lady,"  could  be  suc 
cessfully  protected  from  every  little  rub?  She 
had  had  one  a  day  or  two  before  in  the  news  of 
her  husband's  death ;  for  there  were  shocks  of  all 
kinds,  not  only  those  of  grief  and  surprise.  For 


294  EMBARRASSMENTS 

that  matter  she  had  never  dreamed  of  so  near 
a  release;  it  had  looked  uncommonly  as  if  he 
would  live  as  long  as  herself.  Then  in  the 
evening,  in  town,  she  had  manifestly  had 
another:  something  must  have  happened  there 
which  it  would  be  indispensable  to  clear  up. 
She  had  come  back  very  late  —  it  was  past  eleven 
o'clock,  and  on  being  met  in  the  hall  by  her 
cousin,  who  was  extremely  anxious,  had  said 
that  she  was  tired  and  must  rest  a  moment 
before  mounting  the  stairs.  They  had  passed 
together  into  the  dining-room,  her  companion 
proposing  a  glass  of  wine  and  bustling  to  the 
sideboard  to  pour  it  out.  This  took  but  a 
moment,  and  when  my  informant  turned  round 
our  poor  friend  had  not  had  time  to  seat  herself. 
Suddenly,  with  a  little  moan  that  was  barely 
audible,  she  dropped  upon  the  sofa.  She  was 
dead.  What  unknown  "little  rub"  had  dealt 
her  the  blow?  What  shock,  in  the  name  of 
wonder,  had  she  had  in  town  ?  I  mentioned 
immediately  the  only  one  I  could  imagine  —  her 
having  failed  to  meet  at  my  house,  to  which  by 
invitation  for  the  purpose  she  had  come  at  five 
o'clock,  the  gentleman  I  was  to  be  married  to, 
who  had  been  accidentally  kept  away  and  with 


THE   WAY  IT   CAME  295 

whom  she  had  no  acquaintance  whatever.  This 
obviously  counted  for  little;  but  something  else 
might  easily  have  occurred;  nothing  in  the 
London  streets  was  more  possible  than  an  acci 
dent,  especially  an  accident  in  those  desperate 
cabs.  What  had  she  done,  where  had  she  gone 
on  leaving  my  house?  I  had  taken  for  granted 
she  had  gone  straight  home.  We  both  presently 
remembered  that  in  her  excursions  to  town  she 
sometimes,  for  convenience,  for  refreshment,  spent 
an  hour  or  two  at  the  "Gentlewomen,"  the  quiet 
little  ladies'  club,  and  I  promised  that  it  should 
be  my  first  care  to  make  at  that  establishment 
thorough  inquiry.  Then  we  entered  the  dim 
and  dreadful  chamber  where  she  lay  locked  up 
in  death  and  where,  asking  after  a  little  to  be 
left  alone  with  her,  I  remained  for  half  an  hour. 
Death  had  made  her,  had  kept  her  beautiful ;  but 
I  felt  above  all,  as  I  kneeled  at  her  bed,  that 
it  had  made  her,  had  kept  her  silent.  It  had 
turned  the  key  on  something  I  was  concerned  to 
know. 

On  my  return  from  Richmond  and  after  another 
duty  had  been  performed  I  drove  to  his  chambers. 
It  was  the  first  time,  but  I  had  often  wanted  to 
see  them.  On  the  staircase,  which,  as  the  house 


296  EMBARRASSMENTS 

contained  twenty  sets  of  rooms,  was  unrestrict 
edly  public,  I  met  his  servant,  who  went  back 
with  me  and  ushered  me  in.  At  the  sound  of 
my  entrance  he  appeared  in  the  doorway  of  a 
further  room,  and  the  instant  we  were  alone  I 
produced  my  news:  "She's  dead!  " 

"Dead?" 

He  was  tremendously  struck,  and  I  observed 
that  he  had  no  need  to  ask  whom,  in  this  abrupt 
ness,  I  meant. 

"She  died  last  evening  —  just  after  leaving 
me." 

He  stared  with  the  strangest  expression,  his 
eyes  searching  mine  as  if  they  were  looking  for 
a  trap.  "Last  evening  —  after  leaving  you?" 
He  repeated  my  words  in  stupefaction.  Then 
he  brought  out  so  that  it  was  in  stupefaction  I 
heard :  "  Impossible !  I  saw  her. " 

"You 'saw'  her?" 

"On  that  spot  —  where  you  stand." 

This  brought  back  to  me  after  an  instant,  as 
if  to  help  me  to  take  it  in,  the  memory  of  the 
strange  warning  of  his  youth.  "In  the  hour  of 
death  —  I  understand :  as  you  so  beautifully  saw 
your  mother." 

"  Ah !  not  as  I  saw  my  mother  —  not  that  way, 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  297 

not  that  way!"  He  was  deeply  moved  by  my 
news  —  far  more  moved,  I  perceived,  than  he 
would  have  been  the  day  before:  it  gave  me  a 
vivid  sense  that,  as  I  had  then  said  to  myself, 
there  was  indeed  a  relation  between  them  and 
that  he  had  actually  been  face  to  face  with  her. 
Such  an  idea,  by  its  reassertion  of  his  extraordi 
nary  privilege,  would  have  suddenly  presented 
him  as  painfully  abnormal  had  he  not  so  vehe 
mently  insisted  on  the  difference.  "I  saw  her 
living  —  I  saw  her  to  speak  to  her  —  I  saw  her 
as  I  see  you  now! " 

It  is  remarkable  that  for  a  moment,  though 
only  for  a  moment,  I  found  relief  in  the  more 
personal,  as  it  were,  but  also  the  more  natural  of 
the  two  phenomena.  The  next,  as  I  embraced 
this  image  of  her  having  come  to  him  on  leaving 
me  and  of  just  what  it  accounted  for  in  the  dis 
posal  of  her  time,  I  demanded  with  a  shade  of 
harshness  of  which  I  was  aware  — 
"What  on  earth  did  she  come  for?" 
He  had  now  had  a  minute  to  think  —  to  re 
cover  himself  and  judge  of  effects,  so  that  if  it 
was  still  with  excited  eyes  he  spoke  he  showed 
a  conscious  redness  and  made  an  inconsequent 
attempt  to  smile  away  tlie  gravity  of  his  words. 


298  EMBARRASSMENTS 

"  She  came  just  to  see  me.  She  came  —  after 
what  had  passed  at  your  house  —  so  that  we 
should,  after  all,  at  last  meet.  The  impulse 
seemed  to  me  exquisite,  and  that  was  the  way  I 
took  it." 

I  looked  round  the  room  where  she  had  been 
—  where  she  had  been  and  I  never  had  been. 

"And  was  the  way  you  took  it  the  way  she 
expressed  it?" 

"She  only  expressed  it  by  being  here  and  by 
letting  me  look  at  her.  That  was  enough!"  he 
exclaimed  with  a  singular  laugh. 

I  wondered  more  and  more.  "You  mean  she 
didn't  speak  to  you?" 

"She  said  nothing.  She  only  looked  at  me 
as  I  looked  at  her." 

"And  you  didn't  speak  either?" 

He  gave  me  again  his  painful  smile.  "I 
thought  of  you.  The  situation  was  every  way 
delicate.  I  used  the  finest  tact.  But  she  saw 
she  had  pleased  me."  He  even  repeated  his 
dissonant  laugh. 

"She  evidently  pleased  you!  "  Then  I  thought 
a  moment.  "  How  long  did  she  stay  ?" 

"How  can  I  say?  It  seemed  twenty  minutes, 
but  it  was  probably  a  good  deal  less." 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  299 

"  Twenty  minutes  of  silence ! "  I  began  to 
have  my  definite  view  and  now  in  fact  quite  to 
clutch  at  it.  "Do  you  know  you're  telling  me 
a  story  positively  monstrous  ?  " 

He  had  been  standing  with  his  back  to  the 
fire;  at  this,  with  a  pleading  look,  he  came  to 
me.  "I  beseech  you,  dearest,  to  take  it  kindly." 

I  could  take  it  kindly,  and  I  signified  as 
much;  but  I  couldn't  somehow,  as  he  rather 
awkwardly  opened  his  arms,  let  him  draw  me  to 
him.  So  there  fell  between  us  for  an  appreciable 
time  the  discomfort  of  a  great  silence. 


VI 


HE  broke  it  presently  by  saying  :  "  There's  ab 
solutely  no  doubt  of  her  death  ?  " 

"  Unfortunately  none.  I've  just  risen  from  my 
knees  by  the  bed  where  they've  laid  her  out." 

He  fixed  his  eyes  hard  on  the  floor  ;  then  he 
raised  them  to  mine.  "  How  does  she  look  ?  " 

"  She  looks  —  at  peace." 

He  turned  away  again,  while  I  watched  him  ; 
but  after  a  moment  he  began  :  "  At  what  hour, 
then ?" 

"It  must  have  been  near  midnight.  She 
dropped  as  she  reached  her  house  —  from  an  af 
fection  of  the  heart  which  she  knew  herself  and 
her  physician  knew  her  to  have,  but  of  which, 
patiently,  bravely  she  had  never  spoken  to  me." 

He  listened  intently  and  for  a  minute  he  was 

unable  to  speak.     At  last  he  broke  out  with  an 

accent  of  which  the  almost  boyish  confidence,  the 

really  sublime   simplicity  rings   in  my  ears  as  I 

300 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  301 

write  :  "  Wasn't  she  wonderful !  "  Even  at  the 
time  I  was  able  to  do  it  justice  enough  to  remark 
in  reply  that  I  had  always  told  him  so  ;  but  the 
next  minute,  as  if  after  speaking  he  had  caught  a 
glimpse  of  what  he  might  have  made  me  feel,  he 
went  on  quickly  :  "  You  see  that  if  she  didn't  get 

home  till  midnight " 

I  instantly  took  him  up.  "  There  was  plenty 
of  time  for  you  to  have  seen  her?  How  so,"  I 
inquired,  "when  you  didn't  leave  my  house  till 
late  ?  I  don't  remember  the  very  moment  —  I 
was  preoccupied.  But  you  know  that  though  you 
said  you  had  lots  to  do  you  sat  for  some  time 
after  dinner.  She,  on  her  side,  was  all  the  even 
ing  at  the  'Gentlewomen.'  I've  just  come  from 
there  —  I've  ascertained.  She  had  tea  there  ; 
she  remained  a  long,  long  time." 

"  What  was  she  doing  all  the  long,  long  time  ?  " 
I  saw  that  he  was  eager  to  challenge  at  every 
step  my  account  of  the  matter  ;  and  the  more  he 
showed  this  the  more  I  found  myself  disposed  to 
insist  on  that  account,  to  prefer,  with  apparent 
perversity,  an  explanation  which  only  deepened 
the  marvel  and  the  mystery,  but  which,  of  the 
two  prodigies  it  had  to  choose  from,  my  reviving 
jealousy  found  easiest  to  accept.  He  stood  there 


302  EMBARRASSMENTS 

pleading  with  a  candour  that  now  seems  to  me 
beautiful  for  the  privilege  of  having  in  spite  of 
supreme  defeat  known  the  living  woman;  while 
I,  with  a  passion  I  wonder  at  to-day,  though  it 
still  smoulders  in  a  manner  in  its  ashes,  could  only 
reply  that,  through  a  strange  gift  shared  by  her 
with  his  mother  and  on  her  own  side  likewise 
hereditary,  the  miracle  of  his  youth  had  been  re 
newed  for  him,  the  miracle  of  hers  for  her.  She 
had  been  to  him  —  yes,  and  by  an  impulse  as 
charming  as  he  liked  ;  but  oh  !  she  had  not  been 
in  the  body.  It  was  a  simple  question  of  evi 
dence.  I  had  had,  I  assured  him,  a  definite  state 
ment  of  what  she  had  done  —  most  of  the  time 
—  at  the  little  club.  The  place  was  almost 
empty,  but  the  servants  had  noticed  her.  She 
had  sat  motionless  in  a  deep  chair  by  the  draw 
ing-room  fire  ;  she  had  leaned  back  her  head, 
she  had  closed  her  eyes,  she  had  seemed  softly 
to  sleep. 

"  I  see.     But  till  what  o'clock  ?  " 

"  There,"  I  was  obliged  to  answer,  "  the  ser 
vants  fail  me  a  little.  The  portress  in  particular 
is  unfortunately  a  fool,  though  even  she  too  is 
supposed  to  be  a  Gentlewoman.  She  was  evi 
dently  at  that  period  of  the  evening,  without  a 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  303 

substitute  and,  against  regulations,  absent  for 
some  little  time  from  the  cage  in  which  it's  her 
business  to  watch  the  comings  and  goings.  She's 
muddled,  she  palpably  prevaricates ;  so  I  can't 
positively,  from  her  observation,  give  you  an 
hour.  But  it  was  remarked  toward  half-past 
ten  that  our  poor  friend  was  no  longer  in  the 
club." 

"  She  came  straight  here ;  and  from  here  she 
went  straight  to  the  train." 

"  She  couldn't  have  run  it  so  close,"  I  declared. 
"That  was  a  thing  she  particularly  never  did." 

"There  was  no  need  of  running  it  close,  my 
dear  —  she  had  plenty  of  time.  Your  memory 
is  at  fault  about  my  having  left  you  late  :  I  left 
you,  as  it  happens,  unusually  early.  I'm  sorry 
my  stay  with  you  seemed  long  ;  for  I  was  back 
here  by  ten." 

"  To  put  yourself  into  your  slippers,"  I  re 
joined,  "and  fall  asleep  in  your  chair.  You 
slept  till  morning  —  you  saw  her  in  a  dream  !  " 
He  looked  at  me  in  silence  and  with  sombre  eyes 
—  eyes  that  showed  me  he  had  some  irritation 
to  repress.  Presently  I  went  on  :  "  You  had  a 
visit,  at  an  extraordinary  hour,  from  a  lady  — 
soit:  nothing  in  the  world  is  more  probable.  But 


304  EMBARRASSMENTS 

there  are  ladies  and  ladies.  How  in  the  name 
of  goodness,  if  she  was  unannounced  and  dumb 
and  you  had  into  the  bargain  never  seen  the 
least  portrait  of  her  —  how  could  you  identify 
the  person  we're  talking  of  ?  " 

"Haven't  I  to  absolute  satiety  heard  her  de 
scribed  ?  I'll  describe  her  for  you  in  every  par 
ticular." 

"  Don't !  "  I  exclaimed  with  a  promptness 
that  made  him  laugh  once  more.  I  coloured 
at  this,  but  I  continued :  "  Did  your  servant 
introduce  her  ?  " 

"  He  wasn't  here  —  he's  always  away  when 
he's  wanted.  One  of  the  features  of  this  big 
house  is  that  from  the  street-door  the  different 
floors  are  accessible  practically  without  challenge. 
My  servant  makes  love  to  a  young  person  em 
ployed  in  the  rooms  above  these,  and  he  had  a 
long  bout  of  it  last  evening.  When  he's  out  on 
that  job  he  leaves  my  outer  door,  on  the  staircase, 
so  much  ajar  as  to  enable  him  to  slip  back  with 
out  a  sound.  The  door  then  only  requires  a 
push.  She  pushed  it  —  that  simply  took  a  little 
courage." 

"  A  little  ?  It  took  tons  !  And  it  took  all 
sorts  of  impossible  calculations." 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  305 

"  Well,  she  had  them  —  she  made  them.  Mind 
you,  I  don't  deny  for  a  moment,"  he  added,  "  that 
it  was  very,  very  wonderful !  " 

Something  in  his  tone  prevented  me  for  a  while 
from  trusting  myself  to  speak.  At  last  I  said  : 
"  How  did  she  come  to  know  where  you  live  ?  " 

"By  remembering  the  address  on  the  little 
label  the  shop-people  happily  left  sticking  to  the 
frame  I  had  had  made  for  my  photograph." 

"  And  how  was  she  dressed  ?  " 

"  In  mourning,  my  own  dear.  No  great  depths 
of  crape,  but  simple  and  scrupulous  black.  She 
had  in  her  bonnet  three  small  black  feathers. 
She  carried  a  little  muff  of  astrachan.  She  has 
near  the  left  eye,"  he  continued,  "  a  tiny  vertical 
scar " 

I  stopped  him  short.  "The  mark  of  a  caress 
from  her  husband."  Then  I  added  :  "  How  close 
you  must  have  been  to  her  ! "  He  made  no 
answer  to  this,  and  I  thought  he  blushed,  observ 
ing  which  I  broke  straight  off.  "  Well,  good 
bye." 

"You  won't  stay  a  little?"     He   came  to  me 
again  tenderly,    and  this   time   I   suffered    him. 
"  Her  visit  had  its  beauty,"  he  murmured  as  he 
held  me,  "but  yours  has  a  greater  one." 
x 


306  EMBARRASSMENTS 

I  let  him  kiss  me,  but  I  remembered,  as  I  had 
remembered  the  day  before,  that  the  last  kiss  she 
had  given,  as  I  supposed,  in  this  world  had  been 
for  the  lips  he  touched. 

"I'm  life,  you  see,"  I  answered.  "What  you 
saw  last  night  was  death." 

"  It  was  life  —  it  was  life  !  " 

He  spoke  with  a  kind  of  soft  stubbornness,  and 
I  disengaged  myself.  We  stood  looking  at  each 
other  hard. 

"  You  describe  the  scene  —  so  far  as  you  de 
scribe  it  at  all  —  in  terms  that  are  incomprehen 
sible.  She  was  in  the  room  before  you  knew  it  ?  " 

"  I  looked  up  from  my  letter-writing  —  at  that 
table  under  the  lamp,  I  had  been  wholly  absorbed 
in  it  —  and  she  stood  before  me." 

"  Then  what  did  you  do  ?  " 

"  I  sprang  up  with  an  ejaculation,  and  she,  with 
a  smile,  laid  her  finger,  ever  so  warningly,  yet  with 
a  sort  of  delicate  dignity,  to  her  lips.  I  knew  it 
meant  silence,  but  the  strange  thing  was  that  it 
seemed  immediately  to  explain  and  to  justify  her. 
We,  at  any  rate,  stood  for  a  time  that,  as  I've  told 
you,  I  can't  calculate,  face  to  face.  It  was  just 
as  you  and  I  stand  now." 

"  Simply  staring  ?  " 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  307 

He  impatiently  protested.  uAh  !  we're  not 
staring  !  " 

"  Yes,  but  we're  talking. " 

"Well,  we  were  —  after  a  fashion."  He  lost 
himself  in  the  memory  of  it.  "  It  was  as  friendly 
as  this."  I  had  it  on  my  tongue's  end  to  ask  if 
that  were  saying  much  for  it,  but  I  remarked 
instead  that  what  they  had  evidently  done  was 
to  gaze  in  mutual  admiration.  Then  I  inquired 
whether  his  recognition  of  her  had  been  imme 
diate.  "  Not  quite,"  he  replied,  "  for,  of  course, 
I  didn't  expect  her  ;  but  it  came  to  me  long  be 
fore  she  went  who  she  was  —  who  she  could  only 
be." 

I  thought  a  little.  "  And  how  did  she  at  last 
go?" 

"  Just  as  she  arrived.  The  door  was  open  be 
hind  her,  and  she  passed  out." 

"  Was  she  rapid  —  slow  ?  " 

"Rather  quick.  But  looking  behind  her,"  he 
added,  with  a  smile.  "  I  let  her  go,  for  I  per 
fectly  understood  that  I  was  to  take  it  as  she 
wished." 

I  was  conscious  of  exhaling  a  long,  vague  sigh. 
"Well,  you  must  take  it  now  as  I  wish  —  you 
must  let  me  go." 


308  EMBARRASSMENTS 

At  this  he  drew  near  me  again,  detaining  and 
persuading  me,  declaring  with  all  due  gallantry 
that  I  was  a  very  different  matter.  I  would 
have  given  anything  to  have  been  able  to  ask 
him  if  he  had  touched  her,  but  the  words  re 
fused  to  form  themselves :  I  knew  well  enough 
how  horrid  and  vulgar  they  would  sound.  I 
said  something  else  —  I  forget  exactly  what ;  it 
was  feebly  tortuous,  and  intended  to  make  him 
tell  me  without  my  putting  the  question.  But 
he  didn't  tell  me  ;  he  only  repeated,  as  if  from 
a  glimpse  of  the  propriety  of  soothing  and  con 
soling  me,  the  sense  of  his  declaration  of  some 
minutes  before  —  the  assurance  that  she  was  in 
deed  exquisite,  as  I  had  always  insisted,  but  that 
I  was  his  "  real "  friend  and  his  very  own  for  ever. 
This  led  me  to  reassert,  in  the  spirit  of  my  pre 
vious  rejoinder,  that  I  had  at  least  the  merit  of 
being  alive ;  which  in  turn  drew  from  him  again 
the  flash  of  contradiction  I  dreaded.  "  Oh,  she 
was  alive  !  she  was,  she  was !  " 

"  She  was  dead  !  she  was  dead  !  "  I  asseverated 
with  an  energy,  a  determination  that  it  should  be 
so,  which  comes  back  to  me  now  almost  as  gro 
tesque.  But  the  sound  of  the  word,  as  it  rang 
out,  filled  me  suddenly  with  horror,  and  all  the 


THE   WAY  IT  CAME  309 

natural  emotion  the  meaning  of  it  might  have 
evoked  in  other  conditions  gathered  and  broke 
in  a  flood.  It  rolled  over  me  that  here  was  a 
great  affection  quenched,  and  how  much  I  had 
loved  and  trusted  her.  I  had  a  vision  at  the 
same  time  of  the  lonely  beauty  of  her  end. 
"  She's  gone  —  she's  lost  to  us  for  ever  !  "  I 
burst  into  sobs. 

"That's  exactly  what  I  feel,"  he  exclaimed, 
speaking  with  extreme  kindness  and  pressing  me 
to  him  for  comfort.  "She's  gone;  she's  lost  to 
us  for  ever  :  so  what  does  it  matter  now  ?  "  He 
bent  over  me,  and  when  his  face  had  touched 
mine  I  scarcely  knew  if  it  were  wet  with  my 
tears  or  with  his  own. 


VII 


IT  was  my  theory,  my  conviction,  it  became,  as 
I  may  say,  my  attitude,  that  they  had  still  never 
"  met ;  "  and  it  was  just  on  this  ground  that  I 
said  to  myself  it  would  be  generous  to  ask  him  to 
stand  with  me  beside  her  grave.  He  did  so,  very 
modestly  and  tenderly,  and  I  assumed,  though  he 
himself  clearly  cared  nothing  for  the  danger,  that 
the  solemnity  of  the  occasion,  largely  made  up  of 
persons  who  had  known  them  both  and  had  a 
sense  of  the  long  joke,  would  sufficiently  deprive 
his  presence  of  all  light  association.  On  the 
question  of  what  had  happened  the  evening  of 
her  death  little  more  passed  between  us ;  I  had 
been  overtaken  by  a  horror  of  the  element  of 
evidence.  It  seemed  gross  and  prying  on  either 
hypothesis.  He,  on  his  side,  had  none  to  pro 
duce,  none  at  least  but  a  statement  of  his  house- 
porter —  on  his  own  admission  a  most  casual  and 
intermittent  personage  —  that  between  the  hours 

310 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  311 

of  ten  o'clock  and  midnight  no  less  than  three 
ladies  in  deep  black  had  flitted  in  and  out  of 
the  place.  This  proved  far  too  much  ;  we  had 
neither  of  us  any  use  for  three.  He  knew  that 
I  considered  I  had  accounted  for  every  fragment 
of  her  time,  and  we  dropped  the  matter  as 
settled ;  we  abstained  from  further  discussion. 
What  /  knew  however  was  that  he  abstained  to 
please  me  rather  than  because  he  yielded  to  my 
reasons.  He  didn't  yield — he  was  only  indul 
gent  ;  he  clung  to  his  interpretation  because  he 
liked  it  better.  He  liked  it  better,  I  held,  be 
cause  it  had  more  to  say  to  his  vanity.  That,  in 
a  similar  position,  would  not  have  been  its  effect 
on  me,  though  I  had  doubtless  quite  as  much ; 
but  these  are  things  of  individual  humour,  as  to 
which  no  person  can  judge  for  another.  I  should 
have  supposed  it  more  gratifying  to  be  the  sub 
ject  of  one  of  those  inexplicable  occurrences  that 
are  chronicled  in  thrilling  books  and  disputed 
about  at  learned  meetings  ;  I  could  conceive,  on 
the  part  of  a  being  just  engulfed  in  the  infinite 
and  still  vibrating  with  human  emotion,  of  noth 
ing  more  fine  and  pure,  more  high  and  august 
than  such  an  impulse  of  reparation,  of  admonition 
or  even  of  curiosity.  That  was  beautiful,  if  one 


312  EMBARRASSMENTS 

would,  and  I  should  in  his  place  have  thought 
more  of  myself  for  being  so  distinguished.  It 
was  public  that  he  had  already,  that  he  had  long 
been  distinguished,  and  what  was  this  in  itself 
but  almost  a  proof  ?  Each  of  the  strange  visita 
tions  contributed  to  establish  the  other.  He  had 
a  different  feeling  ;  but  he  had  also,  I  hasten  to 
add,  an  unmistakable  desire  not  to  make  a  stand 
or,  as  they  say,  a  fuss  about  it.  I  might  believe 
what  I  liked  —  the  more  so  that  the  whole  thing 
was  in  a  manner  a  mystery  of  my  producing.  It 
was  an  event  of  my  history,  a  puzzle  of  my  con 
sciousness,  not  of  his  ;  therefore  he  would  take 
about  it  any  tone  that  struck  me  as  convenient. 
We  had  both  at  all  events  other  business  on 
hand  ;  we  were  pressed  with  preparations  for  our 
marriage. 

Mine  were  assuredly  urgent,  but  I  found  as  the 
days  went  on  that  to  believe  what  I  "  liked  "  was 
to  believe  what  I  was  more  and  more  intimately 
convinced  of.  I  found  also  that  I  didn't  like  it 
so  much  as  that  came  to,  or  that  the  pleasure  at 
all  events  was  far  from  being  the  cause  of  my 
conviction.  My  obsession,  as  I  may  really  call 
it  and  as  I  began  to  perceive,  refused  to  be 
elbowed  away,  as  I  had  hoped,  by  my  sense  of 


THE  WAY  IT  CAME  313 

paramount  duties.  If  I  had  a  great  deal  to  do  I 
had  still  more  to  think  about,  and  the  moment 
came  when  my  occupations  were  gravely  menaced 
by  my  thoughts.  I  see  it  all  now,  I  feel  it,  I  live 
it  over.  It's  terribly  void  of  joy,  it's  full  indeed 
to  overflowing  of  bitterness ;  and  yet  I  must  do 
myself  justice  —  I  couldn't  possibly  be  other  than 
I  was.  The  same  strange  impressions,  had  I  to 
meet  them  again,  would  produce  the  same  deep 
anguish,  the  same  sharp  doubts,  the  same  still 
sharper  certainties.  Oh,  it's  all  easier  to  remem 
ber  than  to  write,  but  even  if  I  could  retrace  the 
business  hour  by  hour,  could  find  terms  for  the 
inexpressible,  the  ugliness  and  the  pain  would 
quickly  stay  my  hand.  Let  me  then  note  very 
simply  and  briefly  that  a  week  before  our  wed 
ding-day,  three  weeks  after  her  death,  I  became 
fully  aware  that  I  had  something  very  serious  to 
look  in  the  face,  and  that  if  I  was  to  make  this 
effort  I  must  make  it  on  the  spot  and  before 
another  hour  should  elapse.  My  unextinguished 
jealousy  —  that  was  the  Medusa-mask.  It  hadn't 
died  with  her  death,  it  had  lividly  survived,  and 
it  was  fed  by  suspicions  unspeakable.  They 
would  be  unspeakable  to-day,  that  is,  if  I  hadn't 
felt  the  sharp  need  of  uttering  them  at  the  time. 


314  EMBARRASSMENTS 

This  need  took  possession  of  me  —  to  save  me,  as 
it  appeared,  from  my  fate.  When  once  it  had 
done  so  I  saw  —  in  the  urgency  of  the  case,  the 
diminishing  hours  and  shrinking  interval  —  only 
one  issue,  that  of  absolute  promptness  and  frank 
ness.  I  could  at  least  not  do  him  the  wrong  of 
delaying  another  day,  I  could  at  least  treat  my 
difficulty  as  too  fine  for  a  subterfuge.  Therefore 
very  quietly,  but  none  the  less  abruptly  and  hide 
ously,  I  put  it  before  him  on  a  certain  evening 
that  we  must  reconsider  our  situation  and  recog 
nise  that  it  had  completely  altered. 

He  stared  bravely.     "  How  has  it  altered?  " 
"  Another  person  has  come  between  us." 
He  hesitated  a  moment.     "  I  won't  pretend  not 
to  know  whom  you  mean."      He  smiled  in  pity 
for  my  aberration,  but  he  meant  to  be  kind.     "  A 
woman  dead  and  buried  !  " 

"  She's  buried,  but  she's  not  dead.  She's  dead 
for  the  world  —  she's  dead  for  me.  But  she's  not 
dead  for  you" 

"You  hark  back  to  the  different  construction 
we  put  on  her  appearance  that  evening  ?  " 

"No,"  I  answered,  "I  hark  back  to  nothing. 
I've  no  need  of  it.  I've  more  than  enough  with 
what's  before  me." 


THE   WAY  IT   CAME  315 

"  And  pray,  darling,  what  is  that  ?  " 

"You're  completely  changed." 

"  By  that  absurdity  ?  "  he  laughed. 

"  Not  so  much  by  that  one  as  by  other  absurdi 
ties  that  have  followed  it." 

"  And  what  may  they  have  been  ?  " 

We  had  faced  each  other  fairly,  with  eyes  that 
didn't  flinch  ;  but  his  had  a  dim,  strange  light, 
and  my  certitude  triumphed  in  his  perceptible 
paleness.  "  Do  you  really  pretend,"  I  asked,  "not 
to  know  what  they  are  ?  " 

"My  dear  child,"  he  replied,  "you  describe 
them  too  sketchily  !  " 

I  considered  a  moment.  "  One  may  well  be 
embarrassed  to  finish  the  picture  !  But  from  that 
point  of  view — and  from  the  beginning  —  what 
was  ever  more  embarrassing  than  your  idiosyn 
crasy?" 

He  was  extremely  vague.  "My  idiosyn 
crasy  ?  " 

"Your  notorious,  your  peculiar  power." 

He  gave  a  great  shrug  of  impatience,  a  groan 
of  overdone  disdain.  "  Oh,  my  peculiar  power  !  " 

"Your  accessibility  to  forms  of  life,"  I  coldly 
went  on,  "  your  command  of  impressions,  appear 
ances,  contacts  closed  —  for  our  gain  or  our  loss 


316  EMBARRASSMENTS 

—  to  the  rest  of  us.     That  was  originally  a  part 
of  the  deep  interest  with  which   you  inspired  me 

—  one  of  the  reasons  I  was  amused,  I  was  indeed 
positively  proud  to  know  you.     It  was  a  magnifi 
cent    distinction;    it's   a  magnificent   distinction 
still.     But  of   course  I  had  no  prevision  then  of 
the  way  it  would  operate  now  ;  and  even  had  that 
been  the  case  I  should  have  had  none  of  the  ex 
traordinary  way  in  which  its  action  would  affect 
me." 

"  To  what  in  the  name  of  goodness,"  he  plead 
ingly  inquired,  "  are  you  fantastically  alluding  ?  " 
Then  as  I  remained  silent,  gathering  a  tone  for 
my  charge,  "  How  in  the  world  does  it  operate  ?  " 
he  went  on  ;  "  and  how  in  the  world  are  you 
affected?" 

"  She  missed  you  for  five  years,"  I  said,  "  but 
she  never  misses  you  now.  You're  making  it 
up!" 

"  Making  it  up  ?  "  He  had  begun  to  turn  from 
white  to  red. 

"  You  see  her  —  you  see  her:  you  see  her  every 
night !  "  He  gave  a  loud  sound  of  derision,  but 
it  was  not  a  genuine  one.  "She  comes  to  you 
as  she  came  that  evening,"  I  declared  ;  "  having 
tried  it  she  found  she  liked  it !  "  I  was  able,  with 


THE  WAY  IT   CAME  317 

God's  help,  to  speak  without  blind  passion  or  vul 
gar  violence  ;  but  those  were  the  exact  words  — 
and  far  from  "  sketchy  "  they  then  appeared  to  me 
—  that  I  uttered.  He  had  turned  away  in  his 
laughter,  clapping  his  hands  at  my  folly,  but  in 
an  instant  he  faced  me  again,  with  a  change  of 
expression  that  struck  me.  "Do  you  dare  to 
deny,"  I  asked,  "  that  you  habitually  see  her  ?  " 

He  had  taken  the  line  of  indulgence,  of  meet 
ing  me  halfway  and  kindly  humouring  me.  At 
all  events,  to  my  astonishment,  he  suddenly  said : 
"  Well,  my  dear,  what  if  I  do  ?  " 

"  It's  your  natural  right ;  it  belongs  to  your 
constitution  and  to  your  wonderful,  if  not  per 
haps  quite  enviable  fortune.  But  you  will  easily 
understand  that  it  separates  us.  I  uncondition 
ally  release  you." 

"Release  me?" 

"You  must  choose  between  me  and  her." 

He  looked  at  me  hard.  "I  see."  Then  he 
walked  away  a  little,  as  if  grasping  what  I  had 
said  and  thinking  how  he  had  best  treat  it.  At 
last  he  turned  upon  me  afresh.  "  How  on  earth 
do  you  know  such  an  awfully  private  thing  ?  " 

"You  mean  because  you've  tried  so  hard  to 
hide  it  ?  It  is  awfully  private,  and  you  may  be- 


318  EMBARRASSMENTS 

lieve  I  shall  never  betray  you.  You've  done  your 
best,  you've  acted  your  part,  you've  behaved,  poor 
dear !  loyally  and  admirably.  Therefore  I've 
watched  you  in  silence,  playing  ray  part  too ; 
I've  noted  every  drop  in  your  voice,  every  ab 
sence  in  your  eyes,  every  effort  in  your  indiffer 
ent  hand  :  I've  waited  till  I  was  utterly  sure  and 
miserably  unhappy.  How  can  you  hide  it  when 
you're  abjectly  in  love  with  her,  when  you're 
sick  almost  to  death  with  the  joy  of  what  she 
gives  you?"  I  checked  his  quick  protest  with  a 
quicker  gesture.  "  You  love  her  as  you've  never 
loved,  and,  passion  for  passion,  she  gives  it  straight 
back  !  She  rules  you,  she  holds  you,  she  has  you 
all !  A  woman,  in  such  a  case  as  mine,  divines 
and  feels  and  sees  ;  she's  not  an  idiot  who  has 
to  be  credibly  informed.  You  come  to  me  me 
chanically,  compunctiously,  with  the  dregs  of 
your  tenderness  and  the  remnant  of  your  life. 
I  can  renounce  you,  but  I  can't  share  you  ;  the 
best  of  you  is  hers  ;  I  know  what  it  is  and  I 
freely  give  you  up  to  her  for  ever  !  " 

He  made  a  gallant  fight,  but  it  couldn't  be 
patched  up ;  he  repeated  his  denial,  he  retracted 
his  admission,  he  ridiculed  my  charge,  of  which 
I  freely  granted  him  moreover  the  indefensible 


THE   WAY  IT   CAME  319 

extravagance.  I  didn't  pretend  for  a  moment 
that  we  were  talking  of  common  things  ;  I  didn't 
pretend  for  a  moment  that  he  and  she  were  com 
mon  people.  Pray,  if  they  had  been,  how  should 
I  ever  have  cared  for  them?  They  had  enjoyed 
a  rare  extension  of  being  and  they  had  caught 
me  up  in  their  flight ;  only  I  couldn't  breathe 
in  such  an  air  and  I  promptly  asked  to  be  set 
down.  Everything  in  the  facts  was  monstrous, 
and  most  of  all  my  lucid  perception  of  them  ;  the 
only  thing  allied  to  nature  and  truth  was  my  hav 
ing  to  act  on  that  perception.  I  felt  after  I  had 
spoken  in  this  sense  that  my  assurance  was  com 
plete  ;  nothing  had  been  wanting  to  it  but  the 
sight  of  my  effect  on  him.  He  disguised  indeed 
the  effect  in  a  cloud  of  chaff,  a  diversion  that 
gained  him  time  and  covered  his  retreat.  He 
challenged  my  sincerity,  my  sanity,  almost  my 
humanity,  and  that  of  course  widened  our  breach 
and  confirmed  our  rupture.  He  did  everything 
in  short  but  convince  me  either  that  I  was  wrong 
or  that  he  was  unhappy  ;  we  separated,  and  I 
left  him  to  his  inconceivable  communion. 

He  never  married,  any  more  than  I've  done. 
When  six  years  later,  in  solitude  and  silence,  I 
heard  of  his  death  I  hailed  it  as  a  direct  con- 


320  EMBARRASSMENTS 

tribution  to  my  theory.  It  was  sudden,  it  was 
never  properly  accounted  for,  it  was  surrounded 
by  circumstances  in  which  —  for  oh,  I  took  them 
to  pieces  !  —  I  distinctly  read  an  intention,  the 
mark  of  his  own  hidden  hand.  It  was  the  re 
sult  of  a  long  necessity,  of  an  unquenchable 
desire.  To  say  exactly  what  I  mean,  it  was  a 
response  to  an  irresistible  call. 


THE  END 


WORKS  BY  HENRY  JAMES. 


THE  PRINCESS   CAS  AM  AS  SIM  A. 

xarao,  $1.25. 

We  find  no  fault  with  Mr.  Henry  James's  "  Princess  Casamassima."  It  is  a  great 
novel ;  it  is  his  greatest,  and  it  is  incomparably  the  greatest  novel  of  the  year  in  our  lan 
guage.  .  .  .  From  first  to  last  we  find  no  weakness  in  the  book ;  the  drama  works  simply 
and  naturally;  the  causes  and  effects  are  logically  related;  the  theme  is  made  literature 
without  ceasing  to  be  life.  —  Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  Editor's  Study. 

THE  REVERBERATOR. 

izrno,  $1.00. 

The  public  will  be  glad  to  find  Mr.  James  in  his  best  vein.  One  is  thankful  again 
that  there  is  so  brilliant  an  American  author  to  give  us  entertaining  sketches  of  life.  — 
Boston  Herald. 

THE  ASFERN  PAPERS, 

AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

lamo,  $1.00. 

The  stories  are  told  with  that  mastery  of  the  art  of  story-telling  which  their  writer 
possesses  in  a  conspicuous  degree.  —  Literary  World. 

It  is  as  a  short  story  writer  that  we  think  Mr.  James  appears  at  his  best,  and  in  this 
volume  he  may  be  read  in  his  most  attractive  and  most  artistic  vein.  —  Boston  Saturday 
Evening  Gazette. 

Mr.  Henry  James  is  at  his  best  in  "  The  Aspern  Papers."  .  .  .  For  careful  finish, 
minute  analysis,  and  vivid  description  of  both  the  scenes  and  the  characters,  "  The 
Aspern  Papers  "  may  take  high  rank  among  Mr.  James's  stories.  —  Guardian. 

PARTIAL  PORTRAITS. 

lamo,  $1.75. 

Henry  James  has  never  appeared  to  better  advantage  as  an  author  than  in  this 
delightful  volume  of  critical  essays.  .  .  .  No  one  can  fail  to  acknowledge  the  exquisite 
charm  of  style  which  pervades  the  book,  and  the  kind  appreciation  the  author  evinces  of 
the  finer  and  subtler  qualities  of  the  authors  with  whom  he  deals.  —  Boston  Saturday 
Evening  Gazette. 

THE  BOSTONIANS. 

iamo,  $1.25. 

Unquestionably  "  The  Bostonians  "  is  not  only  the  most  brilliant  and  remarkable  of 
Mr.  James's  novels,  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  recent  contributions  to  litera 
ture.  —  Boston  Courier. 

A  LONDON  LITE, 

AND    OTHER    STORIES. 
ismo,  $1.00. 

His  short  stories,  which  are  always  bright  and  sparkling,  are  delightful.  .  .  .  Will 
bear  reading  again  and  again.  — Mail  and  Express. 

FRENCH  POETS  AND  NOVELISTS. 

isrno,  $1.50. 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY, 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


WORKS  BY  HENRY  JAMES. 


THE  REAL  THING, 

AND    OTHER    TALES. 

X2mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

The  latest  volume  of  short  stories  from  the  pen  of  Henry  James  takes  the  title  of 
the  first  tale,  "  The  Real  Thing,"  a  story  of  artist  life  in  London,  which  is  not  in  the 
least  exciting,  but  which  is  clever  with  that  cleverness  in  which  nobody  excels  the  author. 
All  the  five  stories  are  excellently  written,  and  they  are  all  marked  by  the  same  acute 
and  refined  observation,  the  power  of  analyzing  human  nature  and  human  emotions 
which  is  so  striking  in  all  the  work  of  Mr.  James.  —  Boston  Courier. 

It  is  an  artist's  work  through  and  through,  and  one  feels  that  beneath  its  perfection 
of  form  this  little  masterpiece  embodies  its  author' s  earnest  aesthetic  convictions.  — 
Philadelphia  Times. 

"  The  Real  Thing,  and  Other  Tales,"  by  Henry  James,  is  the  best  volume  of  short 
stories  that  the  author  has  given  to  the  lovers  of  good  fiction.  It  is  distinguished  by 
marked  originality  in  its  treatment  of  modern  life,  and  the  grace  and  purity  of  style 
for  which  Mr.  James  is  celebrated,  is  a  distinguished  feature  of  this  book.  —  Boston 
Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  MASTER, 

AND    OTHER    STORIES. 

izmo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

Henry  James's  art  is  unique.  Whether  in  the  novel  or  in  the  short  story,  he  is  unlike 
any  other  writer  of  the  day.  The  impatient  reader  may  grow  weary  of  his  refinement  of 
the  literary  art,  but  no  one  who  has  not  leisure  or  patience  should  attempt  to  read  James* 
—  San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

There  is  subtle  finish  of  perfection  about  the  literary  workmanship  of  Mr.  James's 
latest  collection  of  stories  — "The  Lesson  of  the  Master"  — that  has  rarely  been  ap 
proached  and  certainly  never  has  been  excelled  in  any  of  his  previous  essays  on  fiction. 
One  has  only  to  read  a  page  of  this  book  to  feel  that  the  author  of  it  has  an  unwavering 
passion  for  art,  to  realize  that  his  sole  aim  is  to  depict  a  sentiment,  an  idea,  or  an  emotion, 
with  actual  fidelity  to  what  is  actual  and  real.  —  Boston  Beacon. 

Mr.  James  is  too  great  an  artist  ever  to  preach,  but  no  modern  writer  has  a  keener 
or  surer  vision  for  the  basic  moralities  of  life,  and  this  quality  makes  his  books  doubly 
agreeable,  for  with  all  the  art  of  the  Gaul,  they  possess  a  solidity  that  is  undreamed  of 
across  the  Channel.  —  The  Home  Journal. 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY, 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


1 


^ 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
TO—*-     202  Main  Library 


LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1*month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 

1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  the  bocks  to  the  Circulation  Dot 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  dale 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


!!      nCT  151986 

AUTO. 

DISC. 

[                  NOVll 

1986 

k 

^'^2  12(toi 

«ty 

| 

i 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKE 
L        FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  1  783          BERKELEY,  CA  94720 

/,—  Ut^.  r_...  ..  ..  ...  ..  .  ,—  ...  ,..=.7=-,=-7  —  t^i  e^-'--.-"-^~i  -    '      '  -^  ^3T'  i  1?  -err—.-  -,Tr  -,  -  -  —  .-~.--.~-,        tx^-J 

-7\ 


^2 

,  V  v/V- 


GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA          LIBRARY    OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CA 


OF  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   CALIFORNIA.       LIBRARY   OF  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  CA 


